I played with ARR Trusts a bit through the MSQ on an alt and it was the most soulless Experience I have had playing Final Fantasy and I played FFXIII

My Solution: Have other NPCs join you, maybe some from Side Quests or have a Pool of NPCs like Squadrons+ let those NPCs later also be able to join your Squadron.

I can see How the Devs want to appeal to Solo/Single Player, though (Why would you play a MMO in the first place?) Single Player RPGs should have good written NPC Party Members, while true that isn't a Possibility in FFXIV.. at least have like 30 Character Pool of designed Trust NPCs. Like imagine you did The Rising 2022 Event Quest and now you unlocked Nhagi'a Jakkya alongside those other NPCs from the Naoki Yoshida Vision as Trusts, that would be awesome!

So in general I want more variety from the ARR Trust System and maybe the ability to run those Dungeons through the MSQ with your Squadrons.