When are we as player going to demand from SE a better MSQ experience

[Loggos]

I completely agree. Their actual MSQ design was never good. The story just motivated us to put up with it but the fact that we have to put up with it in the first place is a problem that is now made abundantly clear by DT thanks to the story not being able to carry the quest design anymore.

I know that fetch quests are a game design staple and I know they can't (and shouldn't) be removed completely.
But there needs to be a better balance in their pacing.
Having to play through approx. five to six hours of fetch quests until you even reach the first piece of battle content in a battle-centric game (and then having to wait several more hours for the next dungeon/trial) is atrocious game design.
If the story doesn't deliver then you are stuck with 5-6h of chores before you are allowed to have fun.

I know dungeons and trials are hard to design so they don't necessarily need to create more of those (though of course I'd always appreciate it). But you could give us more small challenges in-between. Give us FATE-styled enemies that take some time to take down (and that you can fight as a team in the open world too), more small instances, incorporate some fun mini games, treasure-hunt-like quests (not treasure hunts as in the already existing ingame content). I'd even take jumping puzzles.
This would also make the world significantly livelier and allow us to explore and interact with the zones a lot more. DT has beautiful zones that are basically just window dressings or backdrops. It's such a waste of truly great environmental design that could be full of immersive experiences.