I'm sorry in advance, because I might be a big negative towards FFXIV here. And you surely don't want to receive a novel-length response either. While I'm playing Heavensward and trying desperately to enjoy it, there's an ever-nagging voice in my head that wishes I were playing WoW instead.
WoW art may be more cartoony to some, but to me it's stylish and flavorful. FFXIV's graphics are nice(grand cutscenes especially), but it's really pixelated sometimes. Instead of smooth lines, there's a hard pixely edge. I hope I explained that well enough. And while WoW's zones may be over the top, it's great to be immersed in alien worlds(like zangarmarsh or teldrassil). In FFXIV, the zones are good, but nothing that makes me gasp in awe and wonder.
FFXIV's story is well thought out and involves the player well, but to me, that's what makes it boring. My character doesn't respond to much; all she does it stand there while all the other heroes talk and strategize amongst themselves. Omg, so-and-so died? Evil primal has risen? Okay, my character just nods. I want to explore characters that are interesting and complex, who take an active role in the story.
Combat slowness and lag. This is the biggest turnoff for me. When I press a key, it takes a moment for the action to go off. If I use my instant or spell speed skill and then immediately cast, it will stop my cast. I have to pause in between skills. And I've never gotten used to the slow GCD either. When I'm running and want to cast instants, it feels really clunky. If I'm casting a spell and move halfway through, the spell will still go off. And same for a mob - if I interrupt them too late in their cast, the cast still goes off. Maybe this would be different if I lived in Japan? But in WoW, I can pick a close datacenter(closest one is about 400 mi away) and have virtually no lag.
I hear that the WoW community is so nasty and caustic while FFXIV's playerbase is oh so welcoming and such. To me, it's been the opposite. I've experienced a ton of rude players. I recently joined an FC on my server, so I hope things will look up.
You say the armor and weapons are amazing. But everyone has the same thing. We all look alike. I look the same as any other whm who has similar progression. We all have the same relic weapons.
I like the competitiveness of WoW. I like being able to log fights and see what can be improved, etc. Ranking is fun too. I like working together with a guild and overcoming obstacles(with FFXIV it feels like "this fight is fine - if you're too stupid to do it, get out" instead of people wanting to learn it and beat it together). I like doing pvp, getting gladiator and showing off my armored mount.
In FFXIV, I don't enjoy the zones that have all these hills and valleys that are annoying to navigate when I don't have flying yet. But this is a temporary thing. I don't like being expected to DPS as a whm when cleric stance doesn't synergize well with us. I don't like my gimped dps when I solo.
I stopped playing WoW 2 years ago, and I realize the game has taken a wrong turn in this expansion unless you're a raider. Garrisons suck; they're like chores that destroy the community feeling of the mmo. Pvp isn't balanced. There's not much to do, etc. But I do plan on resubbing in the future to see if I just have rose-tinted glasses on.
There are my thoughts. I do think FFXIV is a great game, and I mainly play because this is what my BF enjoys, but perhaps it's just not my thing.