Well I think Bozja vs. Eureka is the perfect example of Shadowbringers vs Stormblood in their 5.1+ lifecycle. Shb started with strong intentions and hype, and fizzled out continously, doing less of everything, making everything dumber and simpler, while catering to nobody. Stormblood didnt start out that well, picked itself up and added onto old, and created new systems that are memorable to this day.

I think we can safely say with Shb that dumbing down things even more than Stormblood did is not the right way to go. We can also safely say that there hasnt been the massive influx of new players (look at how few servers are currently full) that completed dwarfed the ones leaving over the weaker design. Shadowbringer tried to trade in old fans for new fans, and it didnt add up to a bigger success in the end - there is hope Endwalker may try to at least retain and build on this new generation (I imagine down the road Shb newbies will be like WOWs Wrathbabies) of players by raising, once more, the level of quality, engagement and depth.

We lost so much during ShB (Squadrons, most of Gold Saucer, no Deep Dungeon, missing Ultimate, a watered down mini-Eureka, watered down BA, watered down dungeons even further, no interesting crossover content like Rathalos, less depth of beast tribes, less depth of itemization, no new housing zone, the list goes on and on) to gain so little (New game+, Trusts, a cute-to-look-at picture zone for the fairies, Critical Engagement System in Bozja, the solo dungeon for relics and the solo sapphire weapon fight), I think its fair for the playerbase to be disappointed that apparently top level sales does not translate into a better product.