I think there's plenty of ways to strike a balance between 'tedious' and 'engaging'. At the time of its initial release, WoW was actually a lot less tedious compared to its competitors and had done away with concepts such as losing equipment and items upon death.

We're also seeing a surge in the number of pseudo-MMO's such as Monster Hunter World and Elden Ring. Which, certainly, can be played entirely as single player experiences if people so wish but have the potential to have players team up with friends and strangers alike.

I'm cautiously optimistic about what we might see in terms of MMO's in the future - it'll probably take a while until there's another 'lightning in the bottle' moment but as trends and tastes shift in their typical cyclical manner I'm sure we'll see something with a lot of depth that is also enjoyable to play.

If it wasn't for the awkward combat system, I'd be playing ESO instead of FFXIV. Both it and WoW are more to my liking in terms of the sort of factions, playable races and story elements - so it's a real shame that WoW opted to go so far off of the rails.