Genuinely, What am I missing?

[Auro_Seldaris]

What you're missing is a chip on your shoulder. Some misguided people played for only the story, and they felt that the most recent expansion's story wasn't up to par, so now their shoulders are in need of repair.

If you're having fun, keep having fun. The opinions of others shouldn't matter to you.

Nice strawman fallacy. I swear, did literally nobody ever take a debate course in HS or college? You're also falling into the "either/or fallacy". There are people, such as myself, who both play for the story AND enjoy the battle content. It's the story that gives that content context, which is important to many people. Regardless of it being objectively up to par, you're trying to divide people into ONLY two binary camps when it's actually a spectrum. This game can have both good battle content AND a good story, and people can enjoy both, or neither. It's not a binary choice. There are people who are disappointed with both, and that's our right to feel that way.

You and I do agree on one thing, though... this is all completely irrelevant to OP, at this moment in their game experience.

There's a ton of things to do in this game and a lot of it is still genuinely fun to experience. The problems discussed in here don't really get felt until you catch up and run out of stuff you want to do (or when they change a job in a way you don't like)

As a ShB baby I recall someone shout chatting in Eulemore one night about the patch cadence during 5.4-5.5 and thinking "don't really see what's wrong with it, dude maybe needs to take a break", but nowadays I get what they were talking about.

The game's probably better as a place to visit, not to live in.

I know we are in disagreement on BLM in that other thread, but honestly... you and I are actually of the same mind here. Sadly... I do now think of it as a nice place to visit, but not to live.