I don't really know things from before DC travel... I only joined shortly before it was available. However... since then, I have made friends across multiple data centers. I've raided with some, farmed content with others, and spent far more time simply dropping in on them to visit and hang out, catching up and spending time with them. Deep Dungeons being a favorite to just grab a group of friends and hop in.

Even if the use of PF was disabled for me, I would like to be able to drop in on my friends again- and have them able to drop in on me as well. For me, FF XIV is where my friends are. I live in an area without many readily available social opportunities, so for me the Massively Multiplayer part of MMO fills that niche quite nicely. But being effectively cut off from half my friends- friends who I at least could see on Dynamis before this all went down- hurts.

What I would like most is free Data Center travel and cross-DC PFs. However, I would take free data center travel and PFs only allowed on uncongested worlds/ by people on their native worlds over this, and I would be quite happy with the EW way of doing things as well. I didn't mind hopping to Aether when I wanted to PF harder content. For me, it became an opportunity to pop in on my Aether friends, as well as to take a look at their Market Boards for anything I wanted to spend my gil on.

I do feel that the social value of cross-DC travel is more important- for me, the friendships that I have cultivated over the past few years are the real reason I keep paying my subscription. The gameplay has been quite fun, and the story amazing as I spent the past few years slowly working my way from ARR to EW. But it's the friends I've made across that time- and on different Data Centers- that kept me playing.