Voting with my wallet

[Dwill]

Yup the alarmists are sill here.

Yep. For a lot of these people, nothing that will be said or done will be good enough until Square Enix scraps the entire cash shop based on their ignorant preconceived notions that are devoid of logic.

In other words, whenever there is a failing in the game, the solution is not to make the game better but to expect the players to pay extra money to attain their in-game goals. You are asking for gindy gameplay to remain grindy, unaffordable items to remain unaffordable, and an endgame market you call "the same as cash shop" to simply remain the status quo. So, the only people who can flourish in FFXIV are the top minority of hardcore players, and those who blow extra cash in the shop. That is what you are advocating?

I would rather SE had an actual motivation to improve the game, not just sell us the cure to a disease they created.

Not that I am for an everything must be a grind kind of game but removing too many grinds is a dangerous thing to do in MMOs. Remove the carrot from the stick and people have no motivation to keep playing. And the rest of your points, still based on appealing to emotions with a side of strawman and hyperbole.