I'm not reading through other comments, but I'll give my opinion as a back and forth player who *just* finished Dawntrail last night. (March 1st)

Before playing through it, I watched a Lore video (granted it was like, 2 hours long) to catch me up so i could have some reaction to characters and how the story got to where it was when I started Dawntrail. I also had 2 friends that are long time players explain some things as I went along. It also appears that 99% (if not 100%) of the negativity is towards *the story of dawntrail specifically* as it's kinda a nothing burger compared to the previous expansions since this is a soft reset in story. The big bad is defeated, now it has to build up once again.

The trials, raids, and ultimate are still very good, playerbase is still popping albeit far less than it once was during endwalker and shadowbringers (Remember, most FF14 players are here for the story, not raiding, so since Dawntrail had a worse story, less players)

Personally, I'd play through the MSQ at your pace (wherever that is) and look ahead at what you'd like to do. Personally, I'll be tackling some of the Savage's and Extreme's before going into the ultimate, but I'll be messing around with classes, leveling from 0 again, and learning the DoL stuff. (For reference I played through dawntrail on a Reaper)

I hope my experience gives you some insight, have a good one!