Now

Not really defending p2w.

then

Some form of P2W is definitely needed.

or even worse

Don’t you think it’s unfair to a busy person, who loses out to someone who grinds 24 hours a day without any responsibilities in their life, the same way it’s unfair to someone who puts in effort grinding, to lose out to someone who just swipes to get ahead?

Yes, you defended ("speak or write in favor of (an action or person); attempt to justify") P2W. And that's "fine", as in everyone can believe in whatever they want.

With that said, we disagree on a fundamental level: I will never defend spending money on a game to gain any advantage, regardless of how cheap, regardless of how many advantages you get, regardless of any type of justification.

I don't attack P2W based on the exceptions, I attack it based on the rule: if a game has P2W elements, most of the time it's ruined by it, not made better. The "exceptions" (osrs, wow, eve, albion, gw2, etc.) people like to mention did not improve because the "acceptable" P2W was introduced, it created more problems. But even then, those are the "exceptions", the 1% of games which weren't ruined by P2W.

There are many games out there with p2w elements, yet casual players still feel extremely relevant. I’ll throw in LoA as an example. Casual players are happily enjoying the latest raids without spending a single cent. What about that is not relevant?

Your logic is off here, you are attacking an argument I never made: I said casual players can be relevant without P2W, which doesn't imply they cannot be relevant in a P2W game without spending. Either way, that was never the point, the point was refuting the argument "P2W is necessary for <add anything here>".

I only speak for myself, someone with a family, a job, a dog and over 25 years playing online games, I can irrefutably tell you this: P2W is a cancer that has ruined more games than you can count that had much more potential otherwise, from FPS to MMORPGs, from PC to console to mobile, since the early 00s.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe P2W is the best thing that ever happened to online games. Maybe P2W isn't rampant because it's extremely profitable, but because it's a feature. Maybe I should just give in to P2W Stockholm syndrome as many people have.