FF14 player count reached the lowest point in 4 years. We lost 75% of the playerbase.

[Exmo]

This is the most bizarre line of thinking I think I've ever seen. "People love what we're doing and are invested in our very successful story, so we'll blitz through the conclusion in such an unsatisfying way that the big bad that we've spent 10 years hyping up is a midboss loot pinata, all so we can hurry to The Passion of the Wuk?" Where is the logic here?

SHB was much more popular than Stormblood. Devs rightfully interpreted that to mean players preferred all the business with shards, ascian and light vs dark to all the garlemald stuff. So they used this feedback and focused on what players seemed to enjoy.

You can't please everyone of course.