Your Hopes and Ideas for the Battle System Changes in FFXIV 8.0

[Valence]

Given the minimal risks the devs take and the fact that all fights have always been like DDR battles, I doubt they would do it.

They were not. What they have always been is heavily scripted. DDR has only been sparse and I wouldn't have called it "DDR" back then, but there is a world of difference between ARR/HW levels of uptime and movement and what we have now, which almost exclusively relies on it, unlike previously.
This isn't what I signed for when I started playing back then and I feel justified in feeling alienated by those changes.

[ReynTime]

They were not. What they have always been is heavily scripted. DDR has only been sparse and I wouldn't have called it "DDR" back then, but there is a world of difference between ARR/HW levels of uptime and movement and what we have now, which almost exclusively relies on it, unlike previously.
This isn't what I signed for when I started playing back then and I feel justified in feeling alienated by those changes.

Seriously this sounds just right. Post ShB entrees look at raid design from Coils and Alexander and go "whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat" but to me every raid since has not been as fun to learn. You still had to dodge bad things and coordinate with everyone to position yourself but they were way more emphasized around doing what only your role can do, and do it perfectly to counter boss mechanics.