That's still pretty much my take as well.

Do I like the story? Absolutely! Do I think it's all in general worth experiencing? Yes! I've personally even enjoyed a lot of ARR and Stormblood, which a lot of even the biggest FF14 fans are occasionally down on.

But, at some point, something does have to give. Even if the story is amazing, when your ask for a new a player is for them to spend 500 hours just to get to the current storyline that everyone is raving about as being the best thing ever, it's just too much. So the option then becomes do you just ask them to skip the story via skip pot and potentially not experience it at all (and incur an extra expense just to do so) OR you condense the story in some way to make the 500 hours more easily consumable.

I don't think there is a perfect answer here but I think it's worth considering, if you do love the story as much as you claim you do, then which would you really prefer? People skipping it entirely (or rushing through it as fast as possible by skipping every cutscene and rushing through all dialogue) or being able to experience it all in a more digestable manner?