Has Gauges helped you a lot?

[Serilda]

For me it's a mixed bag. I haven't played all of the jobs properly with the new UI yet but:

PLD: Seems sort of pointless, but not especially harmful. I like that my stance still shows up in the buff bar anyway (why don't more jobs do this?!)
AST: Looks great and I could get used to it... except that it actively gets in the way of numerous minor functionalities that were sabotaged to make the new UI seem more important. I'm on PS4 and the button bloat is real. I don't even click cards off all that often, but having to have multiple buttons dedicated to each edge case sucks. I feel less in control than before. Not a fan.
WHM: It's ok in PVE, I just ignore it since the job doesn't really allow for much pre-planning when healing reactively. In PVP it's actively annoying; Benediction is our only instant heal and they doubled down hard on the punishment for someone dying during the animation (which happens with regularity). Losing Benediction's cooldown as well as the target is bad enough when you barely have any abilities, but now you also lose all of your lilies and the ability to cast another spell. The amount of busywork involved in the new WHM just to make it seem like it has a wide spread of abilities is stupid. I don't understand why they made MP management trivial then added two different mechanics to track instead, neither of which feels satisfying or looks good in the interface.
SMN/SCH: I don't like the new Aetherflow display and cannot get used to it. I also didn't like the small changes to how Aetherflow fundamentally functioned as a result of the gauge (especially noticeable with SMN). Sorely needs an option to have the original Aetherflow buff display back and then I'd just hide that part of the new UI.
BLM: I haven't played enough BLM yet for the new UI to be second nature but I do quite like it so far. It could use a few tweaks but I think it's one of the better ones.
SAM/RDM: Both of these are great. The only change I would want is having a subtle indicator of procs on the RDM gauge so that I could rely on it more instead of looking all over the screen.

[SpiritMuse]

I'm on PS4 and the button bloat is real.

I'm on PS4 as well and I haven't noticed any problems with button bloat. O_o With the expanded controls I have plenty of space for everything I need, I don't even use the new W bar at all. So... am I missing something? >_>

[Serilda]

I'm on PS4 as well and I haven't noticed any problems with button bloat. O_o With the expanded controls I have plenty of space for everything I need, I don't even use the new W bar at all. So... am I missing something? >_>

You might just be better at AST than me - it's not a problem on most jobs (now) but with AST, to have access to the multiple separate extremely situational skills (Undraw/Empty Road/Undraw Spread) when all three abillities existed pre-Stormblood without taking up a single button hurts. Card management has what, nine buttons now, on top of the extensive healing toolkit? It's getting a bit too cluttered. SCH uses more buttons than WHM too since I micromanage the fairy - which inexplicably still uses different bindings per fairy even now - but at least none of them are hyper-situational like Undraw Spread. I resent dedicating a button to something I usually never need to press, and used to be able to do without a button at all

[SpiritMuse]

You might just be better at AST than me - it's not a problem on most jobs (now) but with AST, to have access to the multiple separate extremely situational skills (Undraw/Empty Road/Undraw Spread) when all three abillities existed pre-Stormblood without taking up a single button hurts. Card management has what, nine buttons now, on top of the extensive healing toolkit? It's getting a bit too cluttered. SCH uses more buttons than WHM too since I micromanage the fairy - which inexplicably still uses different bindings per fairy even now - but at least none of them are hyper-situational like Undraw Spread. I resent dedicating a button to something I usually never need to press, and used to be able to do without a button at all

You're right that they're very situational. I do keep them on the "back row" - though I also keep them under the same face buttons as draw, spread and RR, which I found helps me find them. You're also right that it's an extra button for a function we already had, but personally I find them much more convenient. I've never found an easier way to access my buff bar with controller than clicking the touch pad multiple times and then pressing left/right arrows until I got to the buff I wanted to disable, which took me a long time, so I'm happy to have it now easily accessible under two/three near-simultaneous button presses.

[Serilda]

I've never found an easier way to access my buff bar with controller than clicking the touch pad multiple times and then pressing left/right arrows until I got to the buff I wanted to disable, which took me a long time, so I'm happy to have it now easily accessible under two/three near-simultaneous button presses.

I'll agree that accessing the buff bar is not the most convenient of operations on a pad, but I guess I got used to it and sacrificing three buttons feels like an awkward solution to what used to be a minor issue, especially since dumping an unwanted card is easier than ever now with Lord/Lady. It would be nice to have both options available, giving everyone the maximum accessibility to suit their playstyle. I just cannot find any room for the existing options without messing my preferred button layout up and have to stow them on a third bar, since AST is already so loaded with great abilities I want close to hand

It confuses me why some things which had functionality beyond the gauge version were removed and made gauge-only, while others get to remain in the buff bar even if seeing them isn't that useful to anyone else in the party.