A few quick points.

One, you can edit your original post to bypass the 1000 word limit.

Two, I'd recommend making separate posts for separate topics (i.e. 1 topic for melds, 1 for crafting etc), so that you can have focused discussion. With posting everything in 1 thread, it's likely to either be a) ignored, or b) focused on one of the many points you have

Third, in terms of your content, I can't say I agree with specifics, but I agree with some overall themes.

Heavensward, in my opinion, messed things up with making rotations as complicated as they are. It limits their ability to have interesting mechanics and content. Further, it widened the gap between the good and bad players so much that duty finder became more toxic. Players, such as myself, do roulettes way less than before, and often only do it with friends. I also feel that they failed on AST, while some parts of it are great (cards etc), having it just have a stance dance between SCH/WHM mode, makes it feel like it has less of an identity and that it's not its own healer.

I disagree that Heavensward got rid of the midcore community. I don't think that Heavensward has really done any worse job on this, than A Realm Reborn. I say this only after we now have all of our raid tiers. Gordias was definitely hard on the community. I think that they can do a lot more to appease the midcore crowd, but they've shown a lack of interest in putting limited development resources to this.

I honestly have very little feedback for crafting, gathering, melding and PvP. I like that melds were added to main gear, but I still feel it was done poorly. This is mostly because the secondary stat system is still god-awful. I've always disliked crafting, gathering and PvP in this game, so as I said, I have very little input.