Unless you're a healer. In which case, you're generally standing still pressing the same 2 buttons almost exclusively every single GCD (assuming you're a good healer).
Positioning matters in both games. Optimization in both games dictates as LITTLE movement as possible. You're not doing crazy movement things to manage uptime as a melee or a tank. You're standing max melee range, and shifting a handful of pixels to trigger flank/rear bonuses. You hit a GCD, back up, and then come back in while your GCD ticks for telegraphs. It's not some crazy amount of movement lol.
WoW's combat, much like the player you quoted described felt more fluid because there's no arbitrary lag built in and a weird desync between the game and the animation. These are not subjective opinions. These are facts. There is inherent lag protection built in, and if you're on a good connection, it doesn't help you, it hurts you and feels janky and the animation desync isn't subjective either. Cast and ability and move and you slide around all silly nilly.
Do these things MATTER? Now that's subjective and certainly up for debate, but their existence is not subjective.
Trust me, WoW players realize just fine that there are oGCDs and GCDs. They know how to weave them to a reasonable degree (i.e. not optimized). Even with these caveats, FF14 is still undeniably slower than WoW. Does this matter? That's again subjective and worth discussing, but the pacing itself is not subjective, it's mathematically proven to be slower.
WoW's combat has plenty of problems, but sluggishness isn't one of them.
This is a good point and why arguing extremes tends to be a waste of time. FF14's combat isn't SLOW (at max level), but it IS slower than WoW. I wouldn't mind MORE oGCDs to press or more decisions to make. Interesting that you find casters in WoW to be better than FF14. I ironically find melee MUCH better in WoW than FF14, but find casters MUCH more fun in FF14.
One of my few complaints about Ret. I prefer a GCD locked class. Fortunately there are SOME ways to mitigate against it (talents, haste prioritization, etc.) and still remain competitive which I found nice.