Ok, tackling the AA thread:

-Thread starts with a guy asking for people to list Pros and Cons (literally merits and demerits) of the AA system.
-Many people say a Pro is being able to chat during combat.
-Con: weapon speed would be difficult to balance
-Con: combat would be slower and more boring
-Some mention it will turn it into a game of math and end up making the "best" DPS class necessary (alienating other classes)
-Many people talk about the pro that AA will give you time to think, and concentrate on other things (give time to plan WSs and chat, etc)
-Con: AA takes away the feeling of combat (I think he's talking about feeling involved)
-A few people mentioned that it is taking away from uniqueness of FFXIV and becoming more like FFXI.
-Many people talk about wanting an option to play both manually and with AA (AA toggle, basically)
-"Managing the Stamina bar with manual attacks is fun"
-"Fighting will become monotonous"
-"Biggest benefit is being able to talk about strategy in chat"
-"You say it will trivialize combat: Did you think that way about FFXI?"
-Con: Other MMOs have AA and it's useless in those games
-(in direct response to above) Pro: If AA is like FFXI, then it's different from other MMOs and is useful
-"Right now, we can't communicate in battle" (pro for AA)
-"The sound it makes when you don't have enough Stamina to attack is annoying" (Pro AA or at least anti-Stamina gauge)
-"Most people just spam normal attacks because it costs the least amount of Stamina" (Pro AA)

That covers a lot of the points. Because the thread was designed to be a "Pros and Cons" thread, most people posted both good and bad things about it. It's difficult to judge whether there was a consensus. I would have to say that more people either wanted it or seemed ok with it than people who disagreed. But they also had a lot more people posting that they want a Manual/Auto toggle available, so people of both playstyles can be satisfied.

The main arguments for AA were the same as here: Time to do other things (chat, strategize, etc), too much spamming, etc. The main arguments against it was trivializing combat, and pigeon-holing based on class damage (saying it will be difficult to balance).

So again, they seem to be on roughly the same page as us.