ARR and HW were both very barebones in terms of their offerings, and neither would satisfy the current playerbase. HW's big innovation was Deep Dungeons, and the rest was just the standard dungeon/trial/raid format.

Players always complain about grinds, but they also want ways to differentiate themselves from others. There's no drop off in the amount of midcore raid content available (if anything, there's a greater variety in this than previous expansions), but if you're the sort of person who exclusively sticks to story mode content, there's nothing in this game to reward you for loitering in game for hours.

If players are unable to differentiate themselves on the basis of challenges, they have to differentiate themselves on time invested, which is why there's suddenly an overwhelming demand on this subforum to bring the grinds back. Rather than trying to entice them into raid content that they're not interested in by progressively simplifying gameplay for everyone else, the devs are better off just letting them grind fates and congratulating them with relics that help them feel more accomplished for their time investment.