Another interview dropped, this time from a German gaming site. He seems to think a lot of the anger is culture war stuff or foreigners not understanding the Japanese-style writing that went into Wuk Lamat, and handwaves the pacing as the struggles of introducing a new world and new people (even though the stuff that was shown to us was puddle-thin and honestly kind of offensive).
That being said, it's a little odd for a German site to talk about Wuk Lamat's voice acting being a point of criticism when apparently the German voice actor for her was very good, but we are talking about games journalists, I suppose. Anything to redirect discussion from the game itself.
https://jpgames.de/2024/09/final-fan...-an-wuk-lamat/

The Japanese aren't taking this one well, either. Top comment is calling Yoshi P clueless.
https://ff14net.2chblog.jp/archives/61770304.html