If you just look at positionals as something in a vacuum, then yes, they are going to seem like busy work, however, the value of them comes from landing the positionals whilst dodging boss mechanics. With this in mind, the fact the fights have changed to in recent times makes the skill of dodging around mechanics to hit the positional less satisfying to pull off.

With hit boxes being so large, you never really disengage from the boss, so you don't have to think about positioning yourself in such a way you dodge mechanics, but also put yourself in a favourable position so that, when you gap close in, you can land your positional, maybe there is a way to dodge it inside the bosses hitbox in such a way you can keep the positionals. The anticipating of the next mechanic, who it could potentially hit and positioning yourself to give the best odds of landing it etc. All these things are extra considerations you needed to take. It is an extra layer on top of just dodge mechanic.

However, there is something else to consider and that is the ready availability of nullifying the positional requirements. That fact you can so easily just make them a non factor is also going to diminish the value people get from them. Why take the extra time to think when you can just ignore part of the problem. The Dragon Sight change is just something else to add onto that pile. I don't know if there are any situations where you wanted to use true north but couldn't because of burst, but could you not have just worked around the boss and the mechanics?

As for the comment about tying it to job gauges, guess what, that is how it was before EW and people still had issues. So going back to that isn't going to prevent people from wanting positional removed.

As for fight design, it has been said, but it is worth stating again. There is no evidence that having a boss with no positional requirements allows for boss designs/mechanics that that couldn't have done with positionals. As for the whole of Bozja, you have to remember, melees can tank with the right setup (and I have tanked DR as a monk before so I know it is possible) so you need to be able to perform even under those circumstances. if it was a normal duty where you were forced to have a standard party composition, I can say with 99% certainty, the bosses would have had positional requirements.

So, in short, the reason positionals feel unsatisfying is because they are being devalued constantly. Positionals need to come back as something you need to think about. However, this does NOT mean every melee job should be loaded with positionals. There should be a range, Monk having the most, being on pretty much every GCD and Reaper ,who I believe, has the least. This also wouldn't stop them from adding in a melee with no positionals, lets get the whole spectrum out there so that someone can find something.

People are always complaining about dumbing the game down, or everything feels homogenised. Removing positionals is just going down that same route.