Final Fantasy cinematics are truly among the best in the industry. I would say they are only behind Blizzard and whatever Hideo Kojima touches lol.
They have been experimenting a lot with combat since they released Final Fantasy XIII trying to run away from the old per turn game but I don't think it has really worked out that well, especially since a lot of people actually want the turn based combat back, it was something that really differentiated Final Fantasy from other games and added a decent layer of strategy to combat.
As someone that has not played XV yet, I find it interesting that they added so many DHL quest into a single player game... maybe they brought one too many Final Fantasy XIV quest designers? lol Hopefully it gets better as the game gets closer to the mid-act and you'll start to get less fetch quests.
I'm in complete agreement about the turn based combat, the timing and strategy to counteract certain afflictions that enemies would combat you with was a big part of the gameplay. We'll see if I end up liking the new live action stuff, for now it is exceptionally easy and you can just mad-button-mash your way through almost any encounter.
The DHL stuff is incredibly reminiscent of the MMO, and that was that part of it that I hated the most. I also really don't like pointless areas where you have to walk for ages just to arrive at your destination on the other end and don't interact with anything along the way. This was an immense problem in the MMO or probably any MMO. I think it is pretty dumb in a 1 player game though.
I feel as though XII was the perfect hybrid of turn-based and live action. I wish they had stuck with that.