My thoughts after reading this thread ..

I really disliked most of the content before Heavensward. Only reason I went through it all was because people said it would get better, and I was looking for an mmorpg with controller support. I'm glad I went through it though. I returned to the game recently and planning on buying shadowbringers soon.
Also .. This is my first and only final fantasy game, you don't have to find final fantasy appealing to begin playing this game. A lot of people like me begin playing because it's an MMORPG, not only because of that, but it's the 2nd most popular one on the market. A lot of MMORPG fans with no experience with previous final fantasy games are playing this game. Most people who began playing WoW had never played Warcraft either.
Also fail to see how disliking early leveling in the game = RPG games not being for you.
But even if one completely don't care about story in video games, one can still enjoy so many aspects of the RPG genre. Progressing you're characters stats, the combat, learning new abilites, finding cool looking armor and weapons for your character, exploring the world, crafting. And especially in mmorpg's there's strong end game with Raids, dungeons and so on, and the feeling of being part of a community in a living breathing world, and making friends in guilds and all over the world. Even this game you could easily find so much enjoyment in with out even caring about the story.