What does that has to do with elitism?
A game that can be played for the story and character development alone and people stating, that the story is so enjoyable one shouldn't rush through it in favor of engame is as far from elitism as it gets.

You may have encountered new players being overwhelmed and giving up, likewise others here (including me) have encountered new players happily getting sidetracked by everything the game has to offer on the way to max level instead of rushing through it. You friend is frustrated. We get it.
But that doesn't mean it's a fundamentally flawed design of the game itself. Not when so many players enjoy what he is complaining about yet you say it like something that applies to every new player when it clearly does not. There will always be players who turn away from a game because it's not what they expected or they have been misinformed.
That's natural and not everyone has to like a game.
But it's no secret that FFXIV is heavily story and character driven with far less focus on endgame than others games like WoW. You can't enjoy a game for something that it is not.

Yes, subsequent expansions will add more and more to the story.
But let SE deal with it as it comes instead of painting everything in the darkest colors. They have found many solutions over time for some problems regarding story progression and I doubt they will stick to the same approach for the next who-knows-how-many expansions to come.
I know you want to get your point across but the problem you are describing isn't as common as you make it out to be.

I'm curious: what DO you want?
You have been describing the problem over and over now, making it out to be a flaw in design and the only option to get around this "waste of time" to be too expensive.
What would be your solution, then?