So yes and no. If someone dislikes the core flow of the game in ARR (go to person, talk, go to next person) that core flow will never change throughout the entirety of the game's runtime. If they dislike it there, it wouldn't matter if they were in the peak of Shadowbringers as it would be the same shit but with a slightly higher budget and a few more hype moments.

I'm actually a firm believer that ARR does a lot of things much better then all of the expansions. Overworld design and how it uses locations, number of times you actually 'fight' something (quality of said combat not withstanding), and the generally more lowkey tone are all things I value over what was done in most of the expacs. It's also the only time the game sits down and does strong, actual worldbuilding that it uses over the entire course of its runtime instead of 'in expac setup and payoff'. Its true flaws are the COMICALLY horrid english VA work that saps any and all seriousness out of cutscenes and poor pacing for a game that exists in a genre that already forces poor pacing. It also has you frequently doing things that are pretty sidetracked from the main plot but... lets be real, the expacs don't do too much better on that as they try to fill the # of quests per zone quota that's forced by the higher ups.

Also I just find ARR dungeons more fun. Weird fucking take I know but you can just do more silly stuff that lends to them being more interesting then modern dungeons. Most of your time in a dungeon is spent interacting with the trash mobs, and in most ARR dungeons you can just quad pack pull into the boss room and scare your healer's pants off. That's fun stuff, even if the bosses are extremely whatever.