Perhaps something they could work on going forwards, addressing the inventory situation would help in a lot of areas as well.

In the end I've played since 1.0 and as such have formed a degree of attachment to my character and as such I want my character to be the best it can possibly be. from an SE viewpoint this is a good thing as it means i'll likely resub at some point

the issue though is that with vertical progression any time I invest in that goal ends up being for nothing as the things i obtain end up being worthless. thus there is no point in obtaining them, from an SE perspective not such a good thing as it means i might only sub for 1 month in every year to catch up with the story and skip several junk tiers of gear.

which goes back to what fizzle and many others have said about how the game needs to feel rewarding and for many it doesn't when so much of your time ends up being for nothing. even when the most challenging of battles will be a cake walk in a few months, undermining the challenge many players had to overcome.

if the game had a degree of horizontal progression that allowed gear to have a much longer life span then I'd likely invest much more time in building up my character and thus in turn would have an active sub for much longer. (even better from SE's perspective)