Difficulty of normal content.

[Kiurt]

Yup. Except WoW devs drew conclusions from the whole Cata launch debacle. I do not know if SE will do the same.

It was the heroic dungeons that were considered too hard, which I agree was a bit overtune at the time. Normal mode was fine. Also the tuning of the classes at that time was terrible (looking at you 4.0 ret paladin) which didn't help.
After a while normal mode was facerolling and heroic dungeons became that too thanks to the nerfs (way overboard imo). People got better gear, everything was easier (unless... BREAK YOURSELF UPON MY BODY shenanigans).

WoW (raid) normal mode today is probably harder for first timers than FFXIV, given of how the games are designed.

I'm pretty sure people like OP just want a LFR type of thing, with 1 to 2 mechanics on bosses and be done with it. In/out/spread mechs. Endwalker basically.