I have been playing since PS3 and the cross hotbar was a god send for ANYONE that plays specifically on console.

When they added Mouse and Keyboard support...it was just even more welcome.

Having said that. Bloat never become more apparent until Stormblood came out. It was pretty bad to play competitively when you had to switch to different hotbars all the time. The W-Cross hotbar/expanded cross hotbar is where it's at.

Where I have become leaning to...more...and more. Is in high end content extremes/savages you have to build hotbars built for high end content.

Current Extreme/Savage hotbars:
-no AOE's on majority DPS and TANKS set to hotbars. Most content doesn't need them and this cleans up your hotbars for skills that are needed primarily.

-OT and MT hotbars for what is important and not important. Flick of the wrist and I can change to a MT hotbar setup which prioritizes skills that are self target (normal). OT hotbars are setup with macros to aid MT (support). No cycling during combat. Just provoke or shirk and switch MT/OT hotbar setup and stay there until next tank swap.

- Role skills are ALL on the same hotbar setup for EVERY tank/dps/heals. I go from Warrior to Paladin...the role skills don't change hotbar slots.
Example: Addle, Feint, reprisal, sprint, Limit Break are in the same hotbar slot. This way muscle memory can take over. This goes for my Invulns, Cure 1/Benefic, Regen/Aspected Benefic, when I change to healers.

-Crafting...this is a no brainer and ever since Shadowbringers trimmed down the crafting it has made my bars literally the same for ALL crafting. Plus all my macros are put together in the groupings for 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 crafted items that need certain amounts of quality/progress when I don't want to finish the craft until quality is reached. Final appraisal is a god send when doing older post 70.

-Gathering literally the same for mining/botany, and you barely use your full skill kit in gathering anyway. Used to have a collectible set, but not anymore.

Playing this game on controller is sometimes better then games DESIGNED with controller as it's main form of control. FFXIV Endwalker is minor bloat for controller players, and SE seems to be taking notice with traiting skills more and more.