The "Road to 70" leveling pace (of the MSQ) should be the default

[Omedon]

So, part of the utility to require you to level to continue the MSQ is to give you reason to grind leveling dungeons so you can get gears. Otherwise, you'd only do those dungeons once and might not get as many gears as you could have.

The other is to have you do relevant side quests which may unlock optional features. Sure, you can do them later, but you would be wasting the exp they provide. That said, you should definitely focus on the MSQ if you are able to continue it instead of side quests.

The MSQ should also gear you (at least on one job) for every next step. For me this was the case until the end of HW which is a SERIOUS oversight because it happened again at the tail end of Stormblood. That also needs to be fixed. For the new player, whose goal is potentially/likely to play with friends at the level cap, stopgaps of "go get gear" before that cap are shoddy design. I spent gil, then clued in about tomestones, but still, that was a weakness in the flow of the game.

[linay]

The MSQ should also gear you (at least on one job) for every next step. For me this was the case until the end of HW which is a SERIOUS oversight because it happened again at the tail end of Stormblood. That also needs to be fixed. For the new player, whose goal is potentially/likely to play with friends at the level cap, stopgaps of "go get gear" before that cap are shoddy design. I spent gil, then clued in about tomestones, but still, that was a weakness in the flow of the game.

The MSQ does gear you, and the gears are good enough to do the next dungeon, but getting dungeon gear once it's available is even better. Many of the complaints of solo duties being too hard could be solved by wearing better gears.

[Moomba33]

The MSQ should also gear you (at least on one job) for every next step. For me this was the case until the end of HW which is a SERIOUS oversight because it happened again at the tail end of Stormblood. That also needs to be fixed. For the new player, whose goal is potentially/likely to play with friends at the level cap, stopgaps of "go get gear" before that cap are shoddy design. I spent gil, then clued in about tomestones, but still, that was a weakness in the flow of the game.

The game does give you enough gear to get through the old patches though-you get coffers from your job quests and the patch quests themselves with high enough ilevel gear to finish the patch story. Unless you accidentally take ones for the wrong class.
You only need to grind gear once you reach the current end game.

On the overall subject I think road to 70 is overkill honestly. I started an alt on a road to 70 server and it hit 30 during copperbell mines (a level 17 quests). On occasion I've seen new players complain about severely outleveling the story because they can't do their expansion job quests to learn new skills until they reach the expansion story. And some find it awkward to be wearing gear far below their level since the quest rewards are so far beneath them.

I think it should stay as a bonus for people interested in it to help populate low pop servers. The normal leveling rate is fine, especially if you enjoy checking out the side content.