You're like one of those people that goes out of their way to be unhappy about something.

1. I fail to see the issue with this since you can already buy skips on the store. Just because someone can skip previous expansions doesn't trivialize the fun I had in the past.

2. Honestly they need to release an updated Hall of the Novice that teaches you what the various symbols that frequently show up in encounters mean as well as a quick play guide for a high level job. This is one of my gripes with the release of new jobs as you're given 20+ abilities and need to figure out what they all do and how it all fits together before being thrown into a solo duty.

3. It's an option, unlike WoW. If someone wants to play FF14 for the story they're not going to use the skip to jump to patch 6.1. WoW's story already stopped making sense when they wiped out all the vanilla content with Cataclysm, resulting in new players doing quests dealing with the aftermath of the fall of The Burning Legion and The Lich King, and then leveling through two expansions where suddenly those enemies are alive and well. FF14 keeps all its old story available (aside from trimming some of ARR).