alliance roulette is just broken and infuriating at this point.

[vetch]

There's more to the Crystal Tower than just the introduction of G'raha Tia. Many story points and lore revolve around the tower itself, where as Estinien's backstory prior to him appearing in the MSQ can be summed up in a single sentence.

Story points like what? All the Crystal Tower info is in the same boat as Estinien's as far as I remember, and I really don't mind if five more summary paragraphs get added to ShB.

While I agree it should have remained optional, they backed themselves into a corner by deciding to make G'raha a Scion instead of remaining the Crystal Exarch. CT makes far less sense if you then do it after Shadowbringers MSQ (not to mention you'd have the uncomfortable time paradox of G'raha running into himself in Mor Dhona.

Your mention of Estinien actually is a good example of why it would be a problem to leave CT optional. A couple of members of my Marilith FC have completed Endwalker but are just now leveling Lancer. They say the Lancer story is extremely awkward considering Estinien has no clue who they are and they aren't supposed to know who he is. It's a lot harder to pass it off as an echo memory when the character didn't know the job in the past.

We don't need in-game lore for why side content that happens earlier in the story doesn't contain references to events that happen later. Once the context has been established that quests canonically happen in the expansion when they become available and not when the player chooses to finally engage with them, it just becomes part of the background vocabulary of the game. It's no odder than finishing Heavensward and then going back to do Shiva EX.

The only explanation needed is "because this is how the game is set up".