SE should have made it a requirement in addition to completing 4.5 MSQ to do the Crystal Tower to unlock the first 5.0 MSQ quest, if the Crystal Tower was that important and intertwined to the story. Waiting a year on a "suggestion" and then making it mandatory past the 1 year anniversary of the release of the expansion tells me there's other reasons beyond lore.

Since SE loves not giving much money to FF14, some SE executives could be looking at these 24 man raids, seeing a completion and participation rate lower than what was to be "expected", and they could cut more funding and move resources around. FF14 leadership forcing participation could be a move to save the content. Then again, I work for a corporation that literally forces people (employees and customers) to use tools and applications just to have a high usage rate to justify spending money on resources to upkeep and make similar tools and applications.

Now for those scratching their heads on why people would be stating their dissatisfaction to now have to do content they were not interested in doing in the first place and changes from being from optional to required, let me just change just one noun in this scenario:

Instead of ShB being around the Crystal Tower, it is around the island of Eureka.
The Eureka storyline has many ties to the MSQ.
It will be required to complete the Eureka storyline in order to progress in the MSQ in 5.3

Would you not come onto the forums to state your dissatisfaction? Would you not feel like this is "forced?"

Most people don't like Eureka. I do. So would you appreciate me telling you to "suck it up," "your making mountain out of a molehill," etc. No, you wouldn't.

Granite, completing the story in Eureka is no where as quick and easy as completing CT. I am not going to pretend that it does. I am just giving a scenario to give those who are not understanding where some of those who are dissatisfied might be coming from.