I didn't mind that in Omega. At the time I thought it was just meant to be "the" FF fanservice raid.

But then the current MSQ arc happened which manages to be a lot less subtle than the Crystal Tower FF3 callbacks.

Endwalker aside I always enjoyed the setting in FFXIV way more when it wasn't trying to be a "Best Hits" of other Final Fantasy games. Maybe that's why I don't have a hate boner for the story of 1.0~1.23b like so many people seem to have.