I feel like people are focusing too much on the story skip and alt character part of OPs thread instead of the main issue/topic at hand which is the length of the MSQ which I have to agree is slowly getting out of hand. It already takes the average player more than a hundred hours just to reach endgame and participate in the new content that gets all the attention from the devs and players. With increasing number of expansions that problem is only going to get worse. The other day I joked about how "soon you'll have to reach the 11th expansion and have 1000 hours of playtime to graduate from sprout status".

Other MMOs (which I'm not going to name as some people here seem to seethe at just their mention) also had that issue and came up with solutions to their story bloat. Sooner or later FFXIV will have to address their ever increasing MSQ size as well (which currently is required to complete in order to participate in the newest content).