That's what I think as well - it's just ex-FFXI players used to how Provoke functioned there and thus assume that SE kept the same ability mechanics in FFXIV, not realizing they're horribly wrong. I've found the best way at informing people of this is to explain that the closest ARR ability to the FFXI Provoke is Flash and to use it like you used Provoke in FFXI as your main hate generating move accordingly, and to keep the actual Provoke reserved for emergencies, as it's not very useful for generating that hate in the first place.