XIV just hands out tomestones directly instead. Parceling things out that way could push some content diversity... but then, this game's population has historically been hilariously over-the-top hostile to feeling "forced" into forms of content they don't want to do, even if it's just alternate pathing and people freaking out over their optimal substats being stuck somewhere they don't want to go get it.

The improved horizontal stuff is certainly the more interesting bit... though if I might indulge a bit of heresy (and arguably ruin one of my own points from an earlier post): I honestly don't think the game benefits from keeping substats around in the first place. I know, throwing all the stats in the bin would be truly heretical, and without gallons of numbers everywhere how can we call it an RPG - but it all just feels like a meaningless charade these days, doesn't it? Just about the only stat that has any claim to validity here is SkS which might be the last remaining form of "skill expression" in gearing... though that claim is only valid for the, like, twenty people who actually run the data themselves rather than getting their breakpoints from the Balance. Everything else tends to be a solved problem before it even really starts. Do the intangibles of optimizing substats and tiny-number-go-up still bring enough people satisfaction in XIV compared to the problems they bring? I wonder sometimes.