The difficulty curve in the game has... problems...

[Deedlit]

The whole reason that mods exist is to solve a difficulty curve problem that plagues these kind of games...
...do not want hardship doing content that involves taking excessive amounts of time to complete...
...This definitely didn't happen as often during Stormblood...

All three of these excerpts are entirely wrong.
1. The mods being used have nothing to do with difficulty or learning whatever mechanic it calls. It's for consistency. The only two that might do that are automarker and viewableAoEs.
2. There might exist some mod that entirely solves brand new, never before seen mechanics, but I don't know it.
3. No, they were used just as often. They're just more visible now that ShB and EW made the game significantly more popular.