To wit:
-Absolutely nobody accepted Nero. Half the people at the meeting didn't know who he was, and the other half didn't trust him as far as they could throw him.
-There is never a need for opinion options, but they are included from time to time to make it feel like a classic role-playing game where options are actually a thing that change the course of the story.
-Cid and Nero spent the time we were fighting the Roegadyn tribunus (Greinwaht, was his name?) figuring out how to reactivate Omega. The furthest Nero ever got was to Cartenau beforehand.
-We're convening with the Alliance because what we're doing is preparing to go to war with Garlemald, and the actions we take need to be concerted to have any hope of coming out on top. Also, Omega was in Cartenau, politically complex territory.
-Shinryu was summoned because, as Alphinaud explained, Ilberd's wish was for a disaster akin to the Calamity (aka Bahamut, a dragon) and the aether for the summoning came largely from the eyes of Nidhogg (a dragon).
-I don't know why the Yda / Lyse thing was necessary, given we had no mention in-story of Yda having a sister beforehand. I suppose Papalymo's "Farewell again, my dear Yda..." foreshadowed it slightly, but other than that I got nothing. Pretty sure this ain't an M. Night Shyamalan film though.
-We don't even know we're going to Doma yet. All eyes are on the Wall and all thoughts are on what to do after the Alliance definitively holds it.
-Red Mage was foreshadowed with Alisae in 3.4, and what Job is most anticipated is a matter of hot debate. (I honestly couldn't care less about RDM - not a fan of it, style aside.) Also, none of the 3.0 Jobs were brought into the story during 2.5(.5), so I don't see why that's such a big deal.
I'm not overly excited, but Yoshi-P has said that Stormblood will start slowly, so I'm going to give it a chance. Zenos has me intrigued either way.