I came with a small update -- the intermittent crashes I mentioned in the top of my post came with this error message:

An unexpected error has occurred. Exiting FINAL FANTASY XIV. 2024-04-22_15:17

ffxiv_dx11.exe+ 130778C
ffxiv_dx11.exe+ 395704
ffxiv_dx11.exe+ 392346
ffxiv_dx11.exe+ 391AA9
ffxiv_dx11.exe+ 390C20
ffxiv_dx11.exe+ 38FF66
ffxiv_dx11.exe+ 3E2C4D
ffxiv_dx11.exe+ 3DF05F

I just found the screenshot I had taken a few months back and wanted to include this information in case it's helpful.