I'm gonna say let's wait and see. It sounds like the trade-off is "no duty finder", if it allows us to use party finder or team up with friends and still do actual content, then whilst not ideal, it's a compromise. If they plan on doing this with future jobs, it may well be the plan on giving this system attention. Hopefully this early release prior to Shadowbringers will end up giving the SE the feedback they need going forward and perhaps make adjustments for release, though that's 'hopefully' not anything based on SE's track record.

I was disappointed at first, but I am seeing how it -could- work, but whether it does or doesn't is going to depend on SE's delivery. I am going to judge once I get my hands on it and then maybe I'll join the people complaining or say "hang on, this is not as bad as you guys think". I think too much focus is on the 'solo', it seems to be designed for solo play, yet is permissable in groups. For me the extent of which is the deal breaker, removing the duty finder for BLU is not the end of the world for me even if largely inconvenient, because I expect we'll see more Party Finder groups made by Blue Mages and I generally do stuff with friends.