Jobs should not be locked behind all these story quests.
The extra fetch quests embedded within the MSQ should be eliminated.
All of the MSQ that are relevant should remain, even if they are at level 50 and prevent the player from leveling further until they are done.

Eliminating the relevant MSQ would destroy the lore, something that you will grow to appreciate by the time you finish HW.

In short, story should stay. SE, don't ever cave to the complainers when it comes to this. However, the obvious compromise would be to trim the fat from the MSQ. Get rid of the irrelevant quests that contributed nothing to the storyline, which is probably 50% of the MSQ in ARR. Increase the experience on the MSQ 1-50 to make up for this.

Simple solution and best compromise imo. If you did away with the entire story quest you would be catering to the "cyclical" customers who want everything now, and those people never stay very long.

Though honestly, I don't know why we are discussing this now. For them to learn in a future expansion perhaps? The decision for HW has already been made, I don't think they are going to change that aspect now.