This is completely fair, though I think it’s worth noting many people may not necessarily want engineered “fake nice”, but just for people to take the foot off the gas for 0.2 sec and not be total jerkoffs.
As I get older I have less and less patience for many things. Sheer stupidity is one of them, but also the rapid / toxic dbaggery that persists among a decent chunk of this community. Beyond the massive game design flaws, it’s probably one of the bigger reasons you see people dropping out. FF14 is indeed engineered, but it’s probably a breath of (artificial) fresh air for some people tired of people in WoW (note: I tried it, wasn’t for me).
Grass isn’t actually greener, but even fake grass may be nicer than what people experience.