Playing an expansion as current content has been a lacklustre MMO experience

[Jojoya]

In 14, you cannot fully engage with the gameplay until endgame. Jobs are not thoughtfully designed sub-levelcap, and the tuning of older encounters is very poorly maintained. For content-oriented players, reaching the stage of the game where their jobs kit actually matters is appealing.

If you feel like the sum of game play is your job kit and so there is none until the full kit is unlocked, that's your problem. I don't know of any MMOs out there that allow you to have access to your full job kit day one.

There's more to content than end game raiding. Who is the real content-oriented player: the one that only cares about raiding, or the one that does a bit of all content?

The downside is that 95% of the time you spend on this game doing the MSQ is NOT cooperative or multiplayer in any way. If you shadow a friend doing the MSQ, you spend most of your time staring at their playermodel with the cutscene icon next to their name as they talk to alphinaud for the 500th time. The 'difficulty' of doing the MSQ with friends is actually a VERY common complaint that shows up on discussion platforms for 14 all the time.

And yet I can be doing it with my friend, especially if I have NG+ enabled to be working on the MSQ with them or using an alt created to level with them. Many times during cutscenes, we're talking in party chat or Discord about what is happening in the cutscene.

It is not difficult to do MSQ with friends. The only annoying part is having to break group to do the solo duties. SE should really fix that so we can help coach our friends through them without having to use a third party communication tool (which is a great option for those who like using them but shouldn't end up near mandatory).

Maybe those complaining should stop being selfish and allow their friends to explore the game at their own pace just as they originally got to (unless they had been recruited to the game by a similarly selfish friend and didn't know how to enforce boundaries).

If the friend has no interest in the leveling experience, then the job boost and story skip are available. Keep in mind that SE is aware that the length of the MSQ can be a problem for players new to the game and they've announced they're working on something to address that. Hopefully it will be ready for 7.0.

The caveat here is that Dungeons/Trials are essentially the only real 'gameplay' you get to participate in during the FFXIV MSQ, whereas in WoW you spend the majority of your time leveling just questing in the open world, which is almost entirely cooperative

WoW stopped adding cooperative quests years ago and moved to solo questing. I can remember the days when you needed to get together a party to do the quests at the digsites in Darkshore and Loch Modan that had the elite mobs, or the quest to get the staff part off that one mob in Desolace that needed to unlock the shortcut portal to the depths of Maraudon, or the worgen quest chain in Grizzly Hills. I remember that multi-part quest chain in Icecrown that required a standard 5 man party to complete - and required everyone in the party to be on those specific quests or phasing wouldn't allow them to progress together.

You don't need help on the open world quests in WoW these days anymore than you need the help here (unless you're playing Classic). At the same time, there's nothing to stop players from doing them together if they want, same as here.

Cooperative play shouldn't be forced - it should be a choice and both games now allow players that choice. If I want to do the MSQ with a friend, I can outside of those solo duties. There's nothing to stop me other than having a lack of desire to play with my friend.

If you assessed both of the games by the standard of "What percentage of playing through your first character can be done cooperatively", FFXIV wouldn't even come remotely close to winning that contest.

I think your problem is you're so focused on combat as being the only form of game play (which it isn't), you overlook the value of shared experiences with friends whether or not combat is involved.