Is there anything meaningful/gratifying to do in this game that's not MSQ?

[Anselmet]

Please understand that I'm not inherently averse to a story. Far from it.

Yes but you have admitted you are skipping the HW cutscenes. I'd suggest you stop that right now if you are going to continue with this game. Its a great game and the story in HW is probably the best out of any modern Final Fantasy game. (My personal tastes is I like it more the FFVII that you seem to like) I would go watch a video on youtube and see what you missed since you started skipping and then pull up your pants and start questing. HW questing is nothing like ARR, and by the time you reach SB there will be less fetch questing.

But then what about the challenge?

You're leveling 61 and in shire gear. That was probably a mistake now that you're over geared because let me tell you: there are a few dungeons in HW that are more than dangerous and challenging for a newbie. But even in shire gear I am more than certain you will not be 'face rolling' through the lvl 57 dungeon nor the lvl 59 dungeon. The lvl 59 boss just takes one person to be retarded for you to wipe over and over. The lvl 57 boss is not kind to healers and if you are a fresh tank, I hope you know how to do cool downs in case your healer is not competent because that boss will make sure you suffer.

Still, whatever, right? I just roll my eyes, it's an MMO, and hey, WoW was like this too, except it didn't gate quite as much of its content behind quite as long a main story.

We are not WoW and I hope we never become WoW. Go play WoW if you do not like that FFXIV puts emphasis on our story. WoW does not put emphasis on story the same way, nor is it as engaging (or at least when I played who knows what its like I haven't looked back in five years since I started playing FFXIV) And there are jump potions past HW, but if you do that you will miss out on an enjoyable story. And when new content comes out you will simply not care for it. With ARR I skipped most of the story and when I started HW I actually watched most of the cutscenes. I did not get the same impact as others did and I had to go back and level an alt just so I could care about the characters and the narrative. And let me tell you, I am forever grateful I did because I would have missed out on a lot. The story is sometimes all that brings me back after a patch hiatus.

I really do hope you continue playing and take peoples advice because the content in the MSQ does slowly get more challenging than ARR.