I think the reliance on rote memory, time limits and insta-death mechanics is slowly going to wear down the community unless SE gets more creative in their encounter design. The lack of dynamism or any chance for improvisation in many of the encounters makes for play that's rigidly predefined every step of the fight. The minutia of every strategy is set in stone and almost any deviation means failure unless you're overgeared enough to ignore a particular mechanic. Still, it's always the exact same order with everyone doing the exact same thing. Luckily I have a cool FC going through coil and EX primals together but people who don't have a near insurmountable barrier of entry after a certain point. Pugging a lot of this stuff is an exercise in frustration in the least and near impossible at its worst. This leads to rage quits, arguments, and a general inability to even progress after a certain point without a static. A game is going to have a hard time surviving when a large portion of its community is functionally locked out of progression. And echo buffs or making gear easier to obtain really doesn't alleviate the issue of insta-death mechanics or fights that are so invariable that the slightest deviation means you might as well wipe and start over.

All this rigidity creates another issue too. A certain lack of epicness, for lack of a better term. Timed enrages, DPS checks, and timed phase changes all leading to situations that can’t be recovered from means you never get those epic boss fights that last a long time with swings and momentum, awesome recoveries from the brink of failure, or improvised “wow, I can’t believe we just pulled that off” moments. Those types of moments build communities whereas the current state of things makes it so any deviation, or even just someone trying to learn, leads to insta-wipes which leads to finger pointing, kicks, rage quits, etc., in the pug community. Which, in turn, leads to the community becoming more and more stratified and less and less people playing.