Still no auto-combo for 123 on old jobs.

[Shurrikhan]

It's the constant push for further simplification in general.
People ''just'' wanted burst windows simplified.
People ''just'' wanted gapcloser potency removed.
People ''just'' wanted animation locks removed.
People ''Just'' wanted busy weave windows removed.
People ''just'' wanted slightly less button bloat.
People still want positionals removed.
People still want their GCD's consolidated onto a single button.

And, outside of perhaps the last, none of those are the person to whom you were/are speaking. (Even then, it's not "all GCDs should be one button". It's "Each GCD action should be one button, instead of arbitrarily anywhere from 1 to 4 buttons for that single rote course of action.")

people immediately think of the one suggestion in a vaccuum

They clearly haven't been, though. Nor have I. There is considerable mention of the surrounding framework of the game.

If others were to behave in the way that you have, by conflating every instance of a larger trend into which they feel your opinion or suggestion could be nested with that individual opinion or suggestion, they could as easily look at your refusal to even consider agency-per-button-count as yet another way to take pretense of complexity over actual complexity.

You see the issue?

Again, I'm in agreement that the game has been oversimplified. I think that needs to be reeled back. In my case, that would almost certainly include replacing rote combos with actual separate but variously combo-capable (branchingly synergetic) actions so that the button count is actually meaningful (i.e., actually gives real complexity instead of reducing the space available for it while providing nothing beyond a bit of extra finger-dancing).

But strawmanning others' positions through conflation and vilification are not how one meaningfully deals with any such issue.

I feel like all this talk about "complexity" vs "braindead" is missing the actual heart of the matter which is that consolidation tends to lead to loss of flexibility.

Depending on how it's implemented.

Combos each have only two options, though:

1. Continue the combo
2. Restart the combo early

Everything else is self-sabotage.

Or, take something with a far greater current button cost but more decisions available in total (such as via multiple combos):
A Dragoon currently has 7 single-target GCD buttons to be optimally used. However, it has only 3 GCD decisions optimally available to it:

1. Continue Full combo
2. Continue Chaos combo
3. Restart either combo

So long as you retain access to those 3 decisions, there is zero loss to flexibility -- only to traps that predominately affect only the most anxious or those with the least manual dexterity.

Finally, take Samurai:

• Continue Setsu combo.
• Continue Getsu combo.
• Continue Ka combo.
• Restart any combo.

Here, though, because Setsu already forks from Getsu and Ka at the 2nd GCD per cycle, unless one intends to spam Hakaze indefinitely, for which there is no use case, one could choose not to bother with the 4th button and still be able to reset any combo in the extremely rare even that they need to refresh a buff because of 40 seconds straight of downtime-or-poor-play but have no Midare available.

Granted, none of this quite matters when, as suggested by the OP from the start, the stacks would be a separate option. (One could just keep a spare uncomboed combo-opener on their bar to force whatever resets they want.)

It needs a lot of the old complexity brought back.

Agreed.

Though, that doesn't mean we should, as a rule / without regard, preclude even any and all customization, technical innovation, or the like just for its making the game's actual simplicity clearer.

If there are conditions we want to put on it, first, so be it. It does intersect certain worrying trends, however tangentially. But this shouldn't be an option we immediately categorize just to archive forever.

Let's take an example:

Let's say I'd love to be able to start charging a spell before having a target for it and to be able to change my spell's target right up until its final actuation period. On the surface, though sounds like a way to simply not have to worry about my target dying or getting punted out of an AoE stack or to prep a GCD heal to go off just after a tank-buster, thus reducing reward for game-sense or fight knowledge; however, it would also allow players to prepare cast for enemies not yet spawned in or for random target damage that hasn't yet revealed its victim, and that in turn is something the game could further play around. Just as one shouldn't consider only what can be gained through some new QoL feature, it makes no sense to consider only what would be lost.