I think it all depends on the expectations of the people playing. What is it you guys were expecting out of the game? If you skip the story and just attempt to hammer through the levels only to do the end game content, then yes, I can see you being disappointed. I'm sorry you are ignoring the RPG part of the genre's acronym. This "problem" has been brought up and, for now, is fine. once we get in to 4.0 YP acknowledged that there would need to be a few tweaks.

Since you like to bring up personal anecdotes I would just like to mention a friend of mine recently bought in to the game and she has been loving it. She mentioned there did seem to be a lot of side quests but just going through the MSQ and actually paying attention and reading them is making this one of the best Final Fantasies she has played since FFIX.