I think it’s too early to write it off completely. Like we now know as a result that we have another gateway to a different reflection (we don’t know which one yet obviously). Between Heritage Found now being in the weird position of being part of another reflection but now coexisting in our reality and Living Memory literally being a different reflection, we have plenty of options to explore in that space. Both in the fact that we now have an entirely new reflection to explore in the future as well as the fact that I have no doubt Y’stola will try and reverse engineer whatever tech they used to bridge their reflection with the source to try and get back to the First.

We have an entirely synthetic method of soul extraction that mimics the Aetherial Sea that as far as we know even the Allagans hadn’t been able to do. The ethical questions it’s raising aside, it presents some interesting narrative opportunities. We’ve seen souls be transferred into objects, we’ve seen artificial intelligence in the form of the system running Everkeep, and we have new methods for resurrection.

There’s still the patch content coming too. So there’s no reason that we can’t still get a Beatrix cameo in the future.

The Krile part I agree with, although I get what they were trying to do with trying to hammer home the point that everyone in your group was giving something up by going forward with their plan. Wuk Lamat lost the only mother figure she’d ever known, Erinville and Kruk’s lost their literal mothers (and father in Krile’s case). The incursion of Everkeep into the source has just cut out a lot of people from our companions and we’re not given time to process it because we have to keep going to make sure the same fate doesn’t happen to anyone else. The entire second act really is all about how you can have the best laid plans in the world but sometimes it’ll all go to shit regardless and you have to do your best to pick up the pieces.

The final fight against the Queen hits that point home; up to that point the WoL has been content to take a step back and let Wuk lead this show; you see this in the way they’ve set up duty support. This time you can use it for both the first and second trials. You’re not the main character here, Wuk is, and the game acknowledges that by letting you bring all your companions into both fights. But that final fight, everything really has gone to shit. And so the WoL finally steps in, pulls out Azem’s crystal and gets it done like they always do.

I guess what I’m saying is, comparing Dawntrail on its own to what came before isn’t a fair comparison. Endwalker was the culmination of a decade of expansions and story. Dawntrail is the beginning of a brand new decade of stories still to come. Things like Krile being Alexandrian have plenty of time to be explored further. In the context of how everything happened, our group really didn’t have time to explore what that means, not with the threat of Zoraal Ja and Sphene hanging over our heads. With those gone, I’m sure we’ll be able to take that step back and spend some time on what exactly that means (hopefully during the Dawntrail patches!)