There is no point buying a level skip. FFXIV is a 400+ hour long visual novel. There is little in the way of worthwhile combat content to do at endgame. You farm the latest 4 raid bosses and maybe a trial boss on savage/extreme difficulty for 4.5 months and that's it. That's FFXIV's endgame. Multiplayer wise, the game is closer to Second Life since people who stick around after catching up on the story spend most of their time ERPing in housing districts.
I'll be honest, my level of shits didn't move a notch. Maybe if I spent enough time with the important character one at a time, the plot twists would matter to me.
The Scions are not well introduced. You just get dropped into them and you are supposed to care when (ARR ending) "Oh no Thancred was the bad guy all along!" when you had barely talked to him for 2 minutes. You get more exposure to the Scions as the game goes on and gradually get to know them more. The non-Scion characters like Aymeric, Yugiri, etc, are better introduced and you get more attached to them quicker.
It also doesn't help that the Scions are very samey: goody two-shoes, methodical scholars who hail from the same nation of Sharlayan. Typically a JRPG gives you a main cast of characters with a wide range of backgrounds and personalities. The non-Scion characters are far more interesting.
GW2 does a similar thing, but in GW2's case, it actually works. You spend a few hours with characters from your personal story, and while it's all fairly simplistic, you get to learn the characters and their quirks. Then you "grow up" for your next, more high-stakes adventure and meet the new cast, while the old cast helps you move on. Then it happens again, and again, and at some point, the characters from the previous plots pop out and do a thing and you're like "Oh I know this guy" and that guy is like "Oh hi Charname, you sure got cooler from back when!" and you're like ohhhh the game acknowledges me, sweet. It's not perfect, and "Living story" went and broke that formula later, but whatever, the initial impression with storytelling is positive.
GW2's cast was more memorable because the characters were actually differentiated from each other. They're not all goody two-shoes, extremely methodical Priory scholars from Kryta. GW2's characters were also allowed to hold grudges against each other, whereas that isn't allowed in FFXIV, so there isn't much conflict and character drama over there. And lastly, GW2's writers knew brevity (at least until EoD) and their dialogue scenes didn't outstay their welcome. It also helps that GW2 has its dialogue scenes play out during gameplay, while you are walking to another location or during a fight, or you have stuff like S4E4 where you are at a meeting and then suddenly you are attacked, which keeps you on your toes and is more engaging than being spoonfed another visual novel scene to click through.
I don't think the Scions are awful. I did somewhat like them, but nowhere near as much as I should have after spending 400+ hours with them, when I was more endeared to the casts of 20-40 hour long JRPGs.
I've heard Stormblood is even worse.
I enjoyed Stormblood for the adventure, though it doesn't deliever on the gritty war story that was promised.
The other usual complaint with Stormblood was the heroine (or it's dual heroines), Lyse and Alisae. They were the same character both competing for the same archetype: the spunky bash bro sister who flips out at the drop of a hat. Alisaie was more kawaii and was reintroduced in the Heavensward patches so people preferred her and hated when Lyse began competing with her in the same role. Inexplicably, the writers later on make the same mistake when they introduce a new Scion character in Shadowbringers who begins competing with Alphinaud for his role as the bright eyed dorky little brother to the WoL and deuteragonist of the story who is a magus and the man with the plan.