I agree with the OP. New players are going to see this shiny little expansion and then have this massive wall to getting into the shiny new content. I absolutely adore FFXIV's story-focused setup. It is unique among all the various MMOs that I've played in that it has a set story that everyone has to follow, and has deviations where you can lose yourself. This is very true to the Final Fantasy brand and I would not want to lose it.

That said, it's an MMO and single-player tenets need to be balanced with MMO needs. A story-jump potion is a happy medium. There are some people who just don't care about the story. I have friends now who play who have never watched a single cutscene. At least a jump potion would present the story so the player could be brought up to speed, rather than speeding through the MSQ and skipping cutscenes and having no opportunity to appreciate what is going on.