100+ old quests to access expansion content...?

[Niwashi]

Sure it would, it would literally work. The complaints you have about the specifics are easily written away. It wasn't the king, it was the pope. He never usually leaves, but he had to for xyz reasons. If you don't like the dragon attack substitute for anything: foiled assasination plot, resembled a foretold prophecy hero, provided critical resources, etc etc.

But your suggestions (or any of the possible variations, of which I'd agree there are many) are just ways to simplify the story so it wouldn't take as many quests to tell it. That might sound fine to someone who doesn't like story anyway, but it would be a horrible thing to do to everyone who does like storytelling in their games.

A great many of the people here are playing this game because we're avid fans of the entire Final Fantasy franchise and the rich stories told through these games. We want intricate involved plotlines with well developed characters in a richly detailed political environment. Taking a rich involved story and instead replacing it with something so simple that it could be told quickly in just a few quests would be robbing the game of the very thing that makes it worth playing.

That would not only drive their core audience of FF fans away from this game, but could endanger the sales of future games in the franchise as well. The Final Fantasy franchise is far too important to Square Enix to endanger it like that just in case they might pick up a few extra fans of generic MMOs with minimal plots. It's unlikely that they'd pick up enough long-term players to replace the ones they'd lose.