Because we do like the story? I'm sorry if that sounded nasty, but it's true. As I mentioned the storyline is an important aspect of the game, it always was (I mean, even the shutdown of the original version of FFXIV and it's replacement with ARR was directly tied into the story, aka the Calamity!). even dungeons/raids etc are not just mindless content you just do, there is always a lore/story reason why you're being allowed into that mysterious ancient ruin or chunk of the Lesser Moon or Garlean fortress or giant Goblin Primal-weapon. Not because "you can", it's because it's worldbuilding.

Everything exists for a lore reason that actually helps flesh out the world and everything in it, rather than just giving an excuse for players to enter "random cave/generic ancient ruin #17 and beat up some random monsters to get mad lootz!" It's entirely fine if the later is what you prefer. The trouble is, as mentioned story-based gameplay is the underlying design concept of this game and will be something that SE will not be changing. As its the fundamental aspect of the game.

But as you said, lets agree to disagree.