New player feedback (AKA reasons why FFXIV has seems troubled keeping newer players)

[Niwashi]

I believe the thought behind this is simply to distribute people and reduce the server stress at launch. I believe this is only temporary

You mean the gating of going to Ishgard (and therefore the vast majority of Heavensward content) until after finishing the full 2.x storyline? From what I understood, that gating is pretty fundamentally built into the story itself. It's there to stay and has nothing to do with temporary issues surrounding release day.