Just going to say this flat out, I did enjoy the story to Dawntrail so far. While there have been quite the few parts that are very polarizing in the FFXIV community (to the point of inflammatory hatred toward a character's voice actress just because she's trans), this isn't the first time where fans are upset with how things are handled in the story in previous expansions, it's just way more focused on than it needed to be.
Go work on your Island Sanctuary or smth. While we're on the topic of said character, as over the top as she can be at times, she does exhibit character growth that's more than just
"Wahhhhh I'm scared of getting on boats!" her losing the "I'm going to become the next Hokage!" bravado that she expressed herself with for the first half of the expansion's story. While yes, it is good that she shows right off the bat that she is vulnerable and that she's biting off more than she can chew, it can be jarring when it was done during moments where it wasn't warranted.
Also in the first half, it was really, really cool to see that you get to explore the different regions in Tural and even get to explore their many cultures, something that otherwise would've been very hard to accomplish this far into the game's main quest scenario. Final Fantasy XIV's story, throughout six expansions, is massive. And while yes, you do learn about some places during the story, for other places that also show an amount of importance, it's often explored in side content. Not to say the direction to take it was bad, but there tend to be hints to said side content even if you didn't unlock the content in regards to it.
An example of mentioned places you should know about but haven't interacted with is
in the postgame for Shadowbringers, and even in Endwalker, where the Bozja questline was brought up, even if you haven't unlocked them yet. It was mentioned for the MSQ, as well as in the lv 80 job quest for Gunbreaker (one of the jobs you can play). I think I was already finished with Endwalker when I finally got caught up with MSQs during 6.2, and I'd like to say it was during 6.4 when I finally unlocked the Bozja questline for the relic weapon (best weapon you can unlock), which I... still really need to do so I can use the final stage of it as a cosmetic.
I get the first half of the story can feel dragged on at times (it was noticeable on my end too), I'm just more favored to it because I love exploration in a video game and picking up some lore doesn't hurt either. And even right now as of Patch 7.1 you can do more with Society Quests and the Crafting/Gathering questline. And even moreso with Patch 7.2, even if one of the new upcoming features will be more tied in to Endwalker than to Dawntrail.
Now, the second half, I also enjoyed, but it felt much longer than the first half, and probably the part that got people angry at Yoshi-P for, especially how Endwalker's postgame went and Dawntrail had taken a similar direction with that. Now, I should let this be known, the only other Final Fantasy games I have ever played were 1 and 6. I have always stood on the opinion that it doesn't require experience with any of the other games to understand references or even just to enjoy the game by itself, which is a lot to say about an MMORPG. But to my understanding, the whole second half
was blatant Final Fantasy 9 fanservice, while not as blatant as Endwalker's postgame literally just being Final Fantasy 4, it was still very noticeable by fans.
The second half of the story was a curveball that I knew was going to happen, especially with one of the trailers for 7.0, I was expecting
the Allagans to return, it really wouldn't have been that far of a stretch if they had territories in Tural, the Allagan Empire had control of Aldenard, Othard, Ilsabard, and even Meracydia, but the direction said curveball was going in was also a welcome one. Besides fanservice to another FF game, explaining this half of the story would require explaining Shadowbringers and even Endwalker, which would stack spoilers on top of spoilers that it'd be messy even for those who are currently in postgame to catch up on. Even the message for the end of 7.0 parallels the end for 5.0 and 6.0, which is a theme that I wonder how things will go when the next expansion comes along. The second half of 7.0's story is also where the featured character's experience in the first half gets put to the test, which I really appreciate with how it goes, and hoo boy, she really got pushed to her absolute limits (physically, mentally, and emotionally). Again, I know people don't like how much in the spotlight she's in, even though this really isn't the first time where the Warrior of Light stepped into the sidelines (Stormblood and Shadowbringers, *cough*), and for what it's worth, her character arc does conclude at the end. In Patch 7.1's storyline, she wasn't as prominent as people feared she'd be, even if she's still a main character, she did also take a step into the sidelines.
As for Patch 7.1's storyline, it was nice to focus on a character that fans were really wanting to see more of during 7.0, especially when compared to the featured character and one of the antagonists, was slept on for the most part. There was also plenty of focus on another character that was important to the story, who arguably had it rougher than the rest of the cast of characters involved. It was also pretty interesting that the storyline started with a resolution to 7.0's end, which if you have played to the end, it looks like even Creative Studio 3 (the division of Square Enix) was saying "yeah we want to move on from Dawntrail's main storyline too". I really hate how it had to end on a cliffhanger, which, isn't a criticism I'm stating, it just got me more invested into what's going to happen next.
Now for the content of Dawntrail, which I can pretty much just group both 7.0's and 7.1's content here, since there wasn't much put in for postgame so far, which I mean fair, people were dooming so hard on how FFXIV had nothing going on. At the very least Patch 7.2 will be stepping in with content that we haven't seen since Shadowbringers, and I'm very excited to get into that when it comes out. In 7.0, you have your standard dungeons (for lv 91, 93, 95, 97, and 99), your three endgame dungeons, and three trials (lv 93, 99, and 100), I love the consistency on how much the difficulty has been increasing over the years, if you were to go from ARR all the way to DT now, things can get very hectic during boss fights and in the trials, and it's enough to keep you on your toes, even if you play Black Mage. In 7.1, there's a new dungeon to run too, bosses are still as busy as ever, even moreso with the last boss. And then there's the raids and the alliance raid, which are even more fun to do, if you enjoyed the dungeon/trial bosses. I love doing the raids, and they're just so good when you got everything down and figured out. The questline for the 7.0 raids is fun and I'm even more excited to continue through it when 7.2 drops. The alliance raid for 7.1 is also very fun to go through, besides how busy they can be, there are a couple spots where the mechanics can become instakill if you aren't careful, one of which can be a bit annoying if there are tanks and ranged dps in the 24-man group and NONE of them use their Interrupts, whether it's because they don't have them, they just don't use them, or worse, they were waiting for someone else to do it but all of them have their Interrupts on cooldown.
Want things to be even more difficult? Need higher ilvl gear on you? You want to become BiS (best in slot)? There are the extreme trials, savage raids, and the new ultimate raid and the chaotic alliance raid. I wanted to start doing the high end content, but the static (raid group) I joined were getting pretty upset with how far behind I was, I mean can you even blame me? I was literally brand new to doing it, and they were all being very impatient with me (tbf I was getting into it in the middle of 7.1, so oops on my part). Hopefully I'll get better luck when 7.2 starts, so I can learn with everyone. The only high end content I ever really got to do was EX3 and the chaotic raid; I still wish I could get a clear on the chaotic raid, I was doing pretty good at it, every wipe was to due to not having enough people being alive for a mechanic.
As for other side content that came out during Patch 7.1, really all I got into were the society questline (since it required playing a combat job to run the daily quests), the beginning of the Hildibrand questline, which I mean, every expansion is legally required to feature the gentlemanly inspector, and the conclusion for the DPS role quests. Sorry, I don't craft and gather as much as I should, my highest level crafter is lv 24, and my highest level gatherer is lv 72. Patch 7.2 will have more Hildibrand quests, the upcoming relic questline, which I am very excited for, because I didn't get to experience the Eureka and Bozja questlines that much, it probably would've been way better to do them while they were current content. There will also be Cosmic Exploration, which I've heard will be similar to Island Sanctuary in Endwalker.
And watch, even with the higher amount of content coming out during 7.2, we're still going to have to deal with the amount of players on Youtube saying FFXIV has no new content. We were literally spoonfed new content with every patch during Endwalker (Island Sanctuary, Variant Dungeons, new Deep Dungeon since Stormblood), it's on us if Dawntrail gave us less as a result. Idk go do content from earlier expansions that you know you haven't done. Binding Coil, Grand Company, Firmament, Ocean Fishing, role quests, Tataru's Grand Endeavor, etc. Go do them if you're still going to be playing FFXIV, you know who you are. 
