The forums seem really old. Not how they look, but the way they work. I don't really have a good comparison, but many years ago I was active in some forums and they usually were faster, had more options, and so on. This site just seems so ancient.

I like about forums like these how it has multiple discussion topics that don't become outdated after 1-2 days (like it's on reddit where you usually don't see FFXIV topics from a few days ago or so), so that you can discuss one topic over a long time span. It's more than just a chat where you just talk about some very recent stuff. It stays for longer. So I don't think they are obsolete. They just nneed a slight improvement.