Sharlayan, Thavnair, and Garlemald all crammed into one expansion is probably the reason why there are pacing complaints. However, I understand why they did it. After the success off Shadowbringers, it is obvious that Garleans, Garleans, and more Garleans was not going to cut it. Personally, I was just tired of it. Stormblood really almost did it in for me. Yet, Shadowbringers was a breath of fresh air and quite frankly surprised the heck out of me. They needed to wrap up this stale saga and put us on something new. I am quite happy Garlemald was just a ruin and not numerous cut scenes of politics, meetings, and Garleans running around here and there. Gritted my teeth through Garlemald (my least favorite zone) and was quite happy with the rest of the expansion (more so for the fact that it put the final nail in the coffin of this story arc... maybe we can get more Shadowbringers).