All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear in game

For the first few raid tiers, their plan is to provide FFXIV Gil multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid.

All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts.

Developers do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so they’re likely to keep that design moving forward. They don't plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon).

Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.

Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.