So, outside of the more glaring stuff like the "Pray Return to the Waking Sands" meme that Minfilia is, SE decided to include a wall only because Titan(Hard Mode) was required in the MSQ. However, this also forces you to unlock Ifrit and Garuda Hard Mode for absolutely no reason. Honestly, as much as I am ok with unlocking a single Hard Mode for story reasons, this absolutely is one of the worst ways to gate people given that the content is dead and just serves to clog up the story for a good while.

You have to kill Ifrit and Garuda Hard Mode first of all things too before even accessing Titan Hard Mode. As for the people saying "Sure, but we can just unsync it" those that do not know how to access the Novice Network or don't have an FC/Friends are going to have a higher chance of quitting the game outside of the Company of Champions quest chain at Lv 30-34 since Coerthas at least gets fun story-wise.

I would rather that you ignore the Hard Modes and have a forced Titan HM unlock at that time in the MSQ where you have to do Titan Hard Mode again in the case you already unlocked it(besides, you're Lv 60 by the time you have to do it at 3.4). It would smooth progression in ARR rather than have this hard brick wall of primal fights you're forced to do to progress after Dreams of Ice since back then you weren't forced to unlock the Hard Modes for Story.