Variance in player skill is hurting FFXIV's itemization design.

[Granyala]

I think it's stupid to base your definition of a raid on the degree of commitment it requires.

Well I did forget to type "large group of people needed". Though as an ex 25man WoW raider, I'm having difficulty considering 8 individuals being a raid in the first place.
Back in the day raiding was: "a huge number of people vs a challenging boss that made you eat dirt for many IDs until it rewarded you for defeating it".

That. By definition, was difficult to achieve with ever changing randoms. Not impossible, mind you but very rare.

Today, most bosses are so easy that it takes a competent group maybe 5 pulls in order to figure out what is going on.
If, outside of savage/ex, any boss survives for more than that, the group has incompetent members.

Dungeons are a bit too small and restricted due to role limits to really support a slightly larger group of friends. Savage raiding has moved away from that in a sense because you can no longer value friendship over skill if you want to progress whereas the difficulty of Coil was tuned to allow for a static of varying skill to clear.

SE made the same mistake Blizzard did: They have one seriously punishing raid mode and the rest of the game is essentially freeloot.
I do agree with you, if you want to argue in favor of content in between.

I do NOT agree with overly rewarding raids and DEVs desperate to pressure/coerce every player into them, the way WoW does.

As SE have continually made EVERYTHING obtainable by all (I pays my sub I should have access to every single item in the game for no effort waah), nothing can ever be "special"

Well then, where is my savage loot?

BTW: if you don't think that weapons with powerful ability modifiers or sets with powerful bonuses wouldn't be deemed mandatory in savage raids, you are deluded.
Just as you are deluded if you think that any savage group would tolerate someone derping around with an i60 weapon.