I definitely agree, I don't want to have that "mandatory" junk like you do on WoW. SE can find a way to regulate and keep stuff like that from happening. Not to mention the community is responsible for that as well. The players in WoW allowed that to happened. If people refused to buy into the bs that is Gear Score and Deadly Boss mods, then they wouldn't be the big addons that they are today. I would like to think that our community will collectively say "NO" to using mods of that nature.

It is all about finding a good balance between the two. Because, I really want addons for FFXIV. Maybe I got spoiled when I started playing WoW lol. I want to be able to streamline the UI to fit my specific playing style. That is one of the things that WoW has done very well. I'm sure that WoW isn't the only game that has UI that you can mod, but it is the only one that I have played that I knew that I had the option. Anyhoo, you didn't have to conform you playing style to the UI, I really like that. I've seen people play all sorts of weird ways in WoW and it works for them. I would really like to say the same thing about FFXIV.

But, I also don't want FFXIV to be a clone of any MMO. So, the dev team is going to have to be careful on their decision. I hope that when they make their decision on issues like this and others, that they stand their ground. I really don't want them to cave in on our every want and desire. They need to at least keep some artistic integrity lol.