Real talk; the lack of Job-specific STORY content is really hurting my excitement...

[Simple_Barghest]

I actually dont mind nor care about the job having to be all about the traditional expectations to what a Paladin is......well let me back up, I dont care that it doesnt fully illustrate that since a lot of other job stories that have better written stories dont much care about exploring the intricacies of the class's design in full detail. Its always has been about the characters and their stories that relate to what their class is in conjunction to the setting they're in.

A fair enough result to come to. Like I said in my edit reason, I've had far too much time to ruminate about Paladin.

Since the Sultana and the Sultansworn are heavily tied to the game's lore, it makes sense the Paladin order comes from there since they're a group in charge of defending both their liege and her people.

Where do we see them do this?
Where, outside of Papashan, do we see the Sultansworn actually putting on their big-boy pants and coming out in-force to be The Sultan(a)'s Bodyguards they're purported to be?
The closest it comes to that is in the Ul'dah starting MSQ, where we have more Jenlyns-esque examples of the position (Owyne) struggling to recover an artifact of the Sultana's rather than serving the position of 'being her shield' or 'protecting Ul'dah's subjects.' The latter example is frequently more-often seen by Gladiators and the Brass Blades.
This, imo, is where Paladin is fundamentally flawed from the beginning, and its fundamental class identity never really manifested like the others. We're told that the Paladin is the Shield of the Sultan(a). And we're given... very few examples of what this means. When Paladin got abilities from its job crystal, they didn't feel like techniques of the Sultansworn. They feel like abilities from another class concept that were ported over. We never see a genuine, actual Paladin do Paladin things, and act as a Paladin could act. Paladin has defensive buffs that play into the idea of "bodyguard" and "guardianship" (specifically Cover, Divine Veil, Intervention, and Passage of Arms), but this never accurately comes to pass.
Edit: Okay there's one more example of a Sultansworn I can think of. Bartholomew, the guy who stands in front of the door and you have to talk to to get to multiple cutscenes in the Fragrant Chamber. But tha's... that's all Barty does. He exists to be the door-guy.

and it's great you bring up the Monetarist struggle because:

So diving within the power struggle between the Monetarists and the Sultansworn was a well placed setting to weave in stories about what it takes to serve and protect the people even when you're faced with adversity.

The problem with the Paladin story is that it started out ok with it doing just that or at least expand on the established story between those groups but then come HW Paladin story and after the reveal, it just destroyed everything it was setting itself up. Thats why Paladin story was actually disappointing. You felt like you reaaaally had your time both in-game and out of game wasted. Again, I wish the theme of the Paladin story went more with keeping it engaging and simple by focusing about the Sultansworn and their duties and further strengthen the bond between the Uldan people and the Sultana. And have Papashan be the main focus too, he's such a nice character who's very underused.

Consider the current writing direction of the Syndicate, specifically members of the Monetarists. I've had to argue this elsewhere, but most of the still-surviving members either have gotten absurd amounts of whitewashing (Lolorito), are fundamentally supposed to be good people (Godbert Manderville), or receive the FFXIV-patented 'Sympathetic Backstory' or 'They're Not Actually Too Bad Don't Villainize' treatment (Fyrgeiss, Dewlala). In essence, they've effectively killed off the conflict that's supposed to drive the Sultansworn storyline - faction-splitting and corruption driven by the Syndicate, and the efforts to purge it from their ranks. And this in turn absolutely blasts a cannon into the chest of Paladin story development.

also yeah just. HW Paladin becoming Bootleg Sith "Rule of Two" helped nobody do anything anywhere.

tl;dr I've done entirely too much thinking about Paladin, because I like my shield-bearing knights in shining armor and the way they were played out here is [pain].

[Allegor]

Where, outside of Papashan, do we see the Sultansworn actually putting on their big-boy pants and coming out in-force to be The Sultan(a)'s Bodyguards they're purported to be?

It's even worse because at the beginning of HW we're still supposed to believe she was dead, and we were framed for her murder, but the job questline has absolutely nothing to do with the incident, or the state of Ul'dah for that matter.

It could've easily been a murder mystery type questline that ran paralell to the MSQ about finding honor and the meaning of loyalty and chivalry and whatnot, but instead we just follow whatshisface's treasure hunt game and find out TheRE cAn oNLy bE oNe!!1!

"...That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard" - Constaint