I must disagree with most of your points. I thought the start of Heavensward was a great way to ease us into the main story and Ishgard. I also like how SE is making us play through the story. They actually care about their lore and want people to experience it, rather then it being a novelty like in other MMO games. Frankly I never found FF11 to be that amazing when it came to story (Which was far too gated I thought anyway).

The one point I may slightly great with you is in regards to flying, but even then I am assuming flying will be of use for daily quests/future MSQ's. Even so, its nice to be give an actually reason to explore the game map now, which feels larger then ever before.