Can we start getting serious about having ARR restructured?

[MistakeNot]

An alternate solution would be to decouple the MSQ from access to game content. Let people who are level 50 start the Heavensward job quests, rather than letting them become a level 60 character with no new moves since 50. Let people unlock dungeons and trials by walking up to the entrance. That way people could complete the MSQ at their own pace, and enjoy it, rather than feeling like it's a barrier to playing with their friends, and they're letting people down by not skipping all the cutscenes.

Problem with this is that it would really mess up the story timeline. We can, for example, not enter Ishgard until certain events in the MSQ has made it possible for our characters to do so. For many dungeons, the reason our characters go into them, is beacuse of events in the MSQ. Etc, etc.
Now, some people will of course not care at all if they skip backwards and forwards in the story, because they did not care about the story in the first place.
For many of us it is quite important to have things happen in the right order though, and for us your "solution" would make the games story a tangled and near incoherent mess.

[Hatstand]

Problem with this is that it would really mess up the story timeline. We can, for example, not enter Ishgard until certain events in the MSQ has made it possible for our characters to do so. For many dungeons, the reason our characters go into them, is beacuse of events in the MSQ. Etc, etc.
Now, some people will of course not care at all if they skip backwards and forwards in the story, because they did not care about the story in the first place.
For many of us it is quite important to have things happen in the right order though, and for us your "solution" would make the games story a tangled and near incoherent mess.

So provide a toggle. Let yourself play in "Main Story Mode" or "Freeplay Mode", and switch whenever you're in one of the three starting cities. People who want the story experience can do so and those who don't mind can leave it be. And if you like the story stuff but you want to run a dungeon with your friends you can toggle out, go run it, then toggle back and go back to your story.

[MistakeNot]

So provide a toggle. Let yourself play in "Main Story Mode" or "Freeplay Mode", and switch whenever you're in one of the three starting cities. People who want the story experience can do so and those who don't mind can leave it be. And if you like the story stuff but you want to run a dungeon with your friends you can toggle out, go run it, then toggle back and go back to your story.

Sounds horrendously complicated to get right. A big "No" merely for that reason.

[Verlyn]

Problem with this is that it would really mess up the story timeline. We can, for example, not enter Ishgard until certain events in the MSQ has made it possible for our characters to do so. For many dungeons, the reason our characters go into them, is beacuse of events in the MSQ. Etc, etc.
Now, some people will of course not care at all if they skip backwards and forwards in the story, because they did not care about the story in the first place.
For many of us it is quite important to have things happen in the right order though, and for us your "solution" would make the games story a tangled and near incoherent mess.

We can already go talk to Urianger about Extreme Primals or Coil during Shadowbringers. We can already start Coil right after talking to Alisae in Doma. We can do Omega without touching Alexander. We can run, start to finish, the Crystal Tower questline right after running some dungeons with Exarch in Shadowbringers. We can have Krile in Eureka, while also having her in Azys Lla looking into the Warring Triad. We can have job quests introduce to us and constantly talk about abilities we don't get and may never be getting again, such as Royal Road! We can start the DRG quest and antagonize Estinien long after making a close friend of him.

These things do not matter nearly as much as you seem to think they do, and if they ever did the ball has long been dropped.

Making the MSQ an optional undertaking would increase the enjoyment of many at the cost of a piddly few, and those piddly few can still do the MSQ in the proper order before doing anything else just like they have to now. Why would you care how total strangers experience the MSQ anyway?

[MistakeNot]

Making the MSQ an optional undertaking would increase the enjoyment of many at the cost of a piddly few,

I do not think that is true.
I do not think that nearly as many would find increased enjoyment from making the MSQ optional as you think.
I also do not think that there is just a few people who would find less enjoyment in the game from such a game.

Overall I think making the MSQ optional would make the game worse rather than better. Some people would probably enjoy the change, but then that is true for just about any possible change.