I was wondering whether to make a new topic or post in this one, as my suggestion is quite different to the one presented above. I will, however, assume that the community representatives will look at the discussion further than just the original post.

That said, first I want to touch few parts of the OP that I don't quite agree with:

I understand and appreciate the value of flavor and lore, but every action in a MMORPG should contribute to character progression, and honestly the items received from sidequests (that can be all cheaply bought at the market wards in 5 minutes flat), don't feel like an appropriate reward for the time spent during the quest, nor contribute in any sizable way to character progression.
The important thing is, that the items received are valuable for the new players, not those with tens of millions of gil available. New players may not have enough money to start off and doing these quests is a nice way to get started, as well as to receive beneficial equipment that will make the character progress further. The reward may not be appropriate for those few players that have long since proceeded further than the appropriate level range of said quests, but you are not the demographic these quests are designed for. Just as the upcoming tutorial quests will probably be just as useless for you even though new players will find them quite valuable. For that demographic the quest rewards accomplish what they should accomplish.

Otherwise people will see most sidequests as useless (and that's the general reaction I've seen on most forums) and skip them entirely, completely wasting their implementation.
That is not true at all. The development team is paving the road for the new players to have an enjoyable, content filled experience from the get-go and to have variety of things to do from the beginning. People who have no means to get by will definitely see these quests as a useful addition.

Now, I would like to offer my own feedback and suggestions related to the issue. Thank you for listening.

The quests, as-is, are not that different from quests found in other MMORPG's. That said, I think it is quite likely that the quests will be compared to each other. What I mean, is that if in some other MMORPG quests that work like the ones in Final Fantasy XIV award experience, money, and equipment, while the quests in FFXIV only award equipment, disappointment will be inevitable. The quests function the same, but do not offer similar reward for your efforts. That is something that needs to be addressed, and there I agree with the original poster. However, our means of 'fixing' the system are different.

I see that in the latest patch 1.16, around 20-or-so sidequests were implemented. If we assume that this is roughly the normal pace of quests the development team will make available in a month's timeframe, I suggest that you shrink the total number of quests in a single patch from 20 to, say, third of that. Now, instead of implementing 20 simple quests that play like the quests in any other MMORPG out there, they would implement around 5 that are three to four times as 'good' as a normal quest. Sure enough, 5 quests is not much, but I think at this point quality is important factor when creating content for the upcoming new players, not so much quantity. Secondly, this would make the quests more drastically different from the quests found in other MMORPG's, which in turn would make the comparison between an FFXIV sidequest and another MMO's quest more even. Yes, you won't get Skill Points and there are less quests total, but they have much higher quality of storytelling and are more involving as well.

To summarize, at this point I think you have two options: Either keep the sidequests as-is and make it so you will be rewarded with skill points for your efforts just like in any other MMORPG, or you can lower the total number of quests, make the remaining quests much better to separate themselves from normal MMORPG quests and keep the reward system as-is. I, myself, would approve the latter option, but I am not saying that the former would not work. Either make the system more like the ones found in other MMORPG's and offer a huge quantity of quests, or make them better while keeping the rewards as-is.

Thank you for listening.