Having to slog through lvl 50 quests is tedious

[Berethos]

Fair enough. But the story wouldnt suffer if Minifila would be replaced by a potted plant (seeing how certain flowers sell for a lot of gil on the market, I should pitch this idea to Tataru...!)

I mean, it would be pretty tough to convince people that a plotted plant is sending out letters and having boring meetings with emissaries and others vying for the attention of the Scions when we're out doing all the fun stuff (make no mistake, that's largely what she does - a lot of management and meetings and letter writing and coordinating...all that boring stuff that keeps the Scions working as an effective organization, so she's hardly just a pretty face).

I think only the last 10-something quests are relevant to the story leading up to HW ;;

You'd be surprised at what's relevant and what isn't. Some of it is super connected directly to the main plot of HW, some is connected to plots that take place later, some of it deals more with thematic elements that are ongoing, some of it is focused on character developments that while not plot intrinsic do add to the overall feeling that the characters are meant to be developing characters and not cardboard cutouts handing out quests, and some of it

is stuff that arguably still hasn't been properly dealt with or resolved and is still an ongoing issue

.

And some of it's more for pacing reasons that felt right at the time (not the idea of "filler to have them keep doing stuff" but more "the characters are doing these things, so let's have the plot hit these beats along the way" and not necessarily realizing that the pacing that worked when 2.2 was the latest patch feels much different when 4.2 is the latest patch).