Variance in player skill is hurting FFXIV's itemization design.

[Granyala]

But, from those three things, I think the one with the obvious widest appeal is raiding.

Hate to burst your bubble here but: No it is not and it never has been.
Only a tiny fraction of the playerbase (< 5%) raids Mythic in WoW.
WoW is MUCH more raid centric than FF, so I'd expect the # of people that participate in savage to be equal or even less.
Bleeding edge raiding isn't and never has been popular with the masses.

What is popular are the normal raid modes (and extreme mode primals to a lesser extend) that can be done via duty finder or PF.
It's the same ting in WoW when you look at the numbers for normal (PF) and LFR (DF) raiding.