FFXIV wouldn't exist in its current form without the Ivalice games. They've long since been a huge source of inspiration for the style of world building, story telling and art style - to say nothing of the fact that a decent chunk of developers worked on those games.

So I think it does a major disservice to claim that the Ivalice content was 'forced'. It was dialogue heavy, yeah, though I don't think anything about its story was particularly difficult to understand...nor did it feel out of place. Furthermore, reading between the lines it's pretty clear that a lot of the plot threads weaved into the Ivalice story are, in fact, likely to be picked up again and made relevant in the MSQ's.

I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially compared to the Nier raid which has absolutely nothing of interest to me whatsoever...beyond the music.