For me the heart of why this bothers me is because I was a hardcore raider in the past, not in XIV but in EQ2 where you needed to coordinate 24 people, not 8, which already was a challenge before the raid even began. I dedicated 30 hours a week to the raid team (something I won't do anymore and is one of the reasons I don't raid anymore - it's addicting to me and not something I want to be tempted by due to other responsibilities now). We went for world or server firsts. So when I had "Cleric Mace of Shiny Shininess" - it had prestige and meant something.

That's how I used to view raid mounts and gear here - when I see them I'd think, "oh that person cleared the most challenging content. That's cool!" Seeing how commonplace "cheats" are just makes me question how cool that is in XIV compared to my past experiences.

In the grand scheme of life, does this matter all that much? No. As an MMO hobbiest and someone who was heavily into raiding, and enjoyed the aspect of "oh cool look at that thing you have!" as recognition that I put the time and effort into earning it, I do stlil care on that level.

I think if you can't clear content as designed, you aren't entitled to top-end gear and mounts. Maybe to most here how I think is strange and no one views clearing current-tier raids as having any prestige. And, as a former really hard-core raider, it's a little sad to me.

As an aside, I'm not 100% anti-mod of any form. I think parsers are useful tools to help people improve. Our raid team used parsers to help point out who needed to improve in as a supportive manner as possible. It helped people perfect rotations and uptime and they improved as a player. It's a tool I wish was supported here for the educational value it brings. But I think tools that change how the encounter is viewed, or in ESO a mod that actually said "MECHANIC INC! DODGE NOW!" cheapened the encounters to me.