I know this is an unpopular opinion… I did V0/5/10/15/20/25 grind. I don’t think it’s fair to myself or others that did this due to ‘too much work to form, allow us to skip to v15’.
This knife cuts both ways, so how far do we want to take this train?
"Back in my day, I had to solo my own V15s for pitiful RP, everyone else should have to suffer like me too." We don't want to do the "fair" thing, do we?
/s
Honestly, I certainly get your point that it doesn't feel "fair". But I also can be reasonable too. I did the entire grind across every boss, but when Odyssey Gaol was the hotness, so I benefitted greatly from having access to a large pool of players. The climb wasn't terrible either, and I kind of enjoyed the unique job diversity it offered. Probably the most fun I have had in FFXI in two decades. I looked forward to leveling and gearing new jobs so I could fit different roles for different bosses. But that was then. And not everyone is me. Gaol could use an enhancement to lessen the "burden" a bit for players who are simply not as invested in Gaol as some of us were during it's high point.
Not that I want to water down what I consider to be some of SE's better designed content, because Gaol is extremely unique. But just like how they made getting Malignance gear easier (because doing 500 runs just to get the last piece was absurd), I wouldn't be mad if they found a way to make Gaol a bit less taxing on the remainder of players (translation: vast majority) who have zero interest in touching it, because the progression model is kind of dated at this point.
Just my 2c