Do we know that those NPC characters are weak? Also didnt they fight with hundreds of people against a primal (mostly because of the high loss thanks to tempering) And lets not forget that we also fought against primals like Ravana (which needed all the WoD to defeat it later, so cant be that weak) and Thordan with his 12 knights. These knights were highly trained elite knights, so they cant be pushovers. On top of that they were powered by prayers of thousand years, Nidhoggs eye and warring triad. We killed them solo! Before that we defeated Regula alone and put the two Ascians down. We also defeated Nidhogg on our own (with the help of his brothers eye), went against high ranking void creatures like Diablo. We defeated Bahamut (even if he was not of his former strenght) and killed the Warring Triad too. I really have to stretch my believe that after all those feasts we just simply loose to one Garlean in single combat with us being at full strength. And on top of that he does not want to kill us because he wants to fight against someone strong. (Quite the insult)
Not only that but why should we suddenly have that ability? I mean we had beloved people die on us in HW yet there was no such echo at that moment. So it would leave a bad taste since this ability would just come to us sudden when we did not have it when we could have needed it after the vault (which would make Haurchefants death even more hard for me..) but it would also still leave a bad taste because we still would have lost against one Garlean. Really I hope that there is more to it than "sudden person that can defeat a walking calamity in single combat".
Also a big question remains. If we loose there with all the grand companies on our side..and we travel to Othard which takes months..shouldnt the Empire try to take over Eorzea?