I've been writing a lot on the forums, but I'll just say this on this thread.

The whole of Game of thrones was sullied any rewatchability because of how season 8 was rushed and butchered.
That is what happened to me and WoW over the years, they butchered the lore and worldbuilding so bad, along with the "story" that whatever they pump out now isn't going to undo things that they ruined within the lore.

Right now? FFXIV has some things like Dynamis and spaceships, getting rid of the Twelve in a haphazard way (if anyone found out in Eorzea that the gods were "fake" there would be a huge religious meltdown, compare it to what happened in Ishgard) and removing mysticism that are sloooowly edging towards that. But we aren't there yet.

8.0 CAN be mid storywise, the community isn't leaving anywhere and they will have a healthy population because there simply isnt anything else on the market aside from WoW. (lets be real here, sorry GW2 and Elder Scrolls online etc). But if the story, worldbuilding is ruined AND the gameplay is mid too? I have a feeling that its going to bite them hard.

But toning down my doomer for a moment, we still have patches left in Dawntrail. But sheesh, are they really going to leave the exploration in space (urgh) and Bozja/Eureka clone to the END of the expansion? A bit of a weird decision. If not straight up changes, they could AT LEAST communicate CLEAR ROADMAPS for us instead of vague interviews we have to fish out with a casual "please look forward to it" magic yoshi pr missile attached to it.