TLDR; at the end.
This post is about things I don't like in the game, and I won't focus much on the parts that I do like. I understand this kind of post isn't well received here but hope dies last, right? I know it's a lot but please do try to read it all before replying.

I've been playing the game for over 10 years. Ever since the first open beta launched. I played 1.0 during its betas and when it launched and then quit because it was just bad.

I make this post not because I hate the game but because I love it and I want to keep loving it. But the way it's going, I'm getting the feeling that I'm falling out of love, and I don't want that. I talked with friends who do all sorts of content about my concerns and most of them echoed them.

Now, with this disclaimer out of the way, here goes:

The game was carried by the legacy of SE killing 1.0 and having the ARR phoenix rise from its ashes and the epic story of what came after right up to the conclusion we just recently got. But that part is now over and we're moving on.

With the game stripped of its biggest selling point because it hasn't had time yet to develop a new story and no new content coming for a year, there isn't much left to distract from the issues.
These issues being:

Glamour system is just bad.
There’s a billion items in the game and no matter how much you expand the glamour slots, there will never be enough space. Just make it a checklist. You get the gear once, you can always glamour it.

The map is disconnected.
One really cool thing about 1.0 was that you could walk from Limsa to Uldah without a single loading screen. It’s not a big deal gameplay wise but it was really cool, and I want it back.

Leveling is boring, fates suck
For anyone who wasn’t around at the start: Fates used to be the primary way to level in ARR because dungeon EXP was pretty bad. They fixed that and now the only purpose fates have is the gemstone system. The problem with leveling is that leveling isn’t fun. You don’t really notice it when you level your first job in a new expansion because it just happens while you do the story but for every job beyond that, you’re sort of forced to do dungeons if you want to level in a reasonable amount of time. And the problem with having to do dungeons is: