Yeah. In FF14, during a dry patch period, I fantasied from Lalafell to an old Elezen on a whim for a few months while doing roulettes. It became immediately obvious that it would make no sense to go through the main story as this character, or even as a 30+ year old looking character like some of the Highlander or Roegadyn faces. You are treated as a young man at the start of the game, a peer to Alphinaud and Alisaie, etc.
With MMOs it is understandably because they are effectively a different monetization model for the same type of long running serialized RPG story like Trails. The difference is that here you create the character and play it for 10 or 20+ years of entries rather than changing between preset protagonists every few installments. The story has to be written so that your character isn't already in the know about everything happening and slowly gets brought into the fold, and it makes the most sense to do that if they start as a young man taking his first steps out of his starter village into the wider world. This also lets the authority and mentor figures retain their status and be effective towards the protagonist in teaching them and giving them a goalpost to eventually become like later on, whereas if you already start out as old then that doesn't work well.
WoW, GW2, and FF14 do use this to varying degrees of effectiveness. In WoW, by Cataclysm and MoP, you are you are an extremely accomplished veteran of your faction, and the handpicked man for the MoP operation. You are also personally scouted by the Black Prince who lavishes his treasury on you to do his bidding. And then in WoD, you are personally appointed by the High King/Warchief as general of the Draenor campaign, and get to build your own base and lead a small army. That felt rewarding. Sadly that was all undone come BFA when you get relegated to being a nonentity. Dragonflight and TWW feel really bizzare because 20 years have canonically passed since Vanilla. You are by rights the most accomplished man on Azeroth, moreso than Jaina, Thrall, etc. But you are never a consideration as a go-to guy or being reappointed as general, etc, and instead have to stand behind while these less accomplished people dictate what to do.
FF14 becomes somewhat unsatisfying over the long term because you constantly liberate kingdoms, befriend princes, and then they personally ask you to come work for them as their right hand man or their general. In Dawntrail, you get personally asked to become the supreme commander of Tural, the largest empire in the world spanning not-North American to not-South America. But you are railroaded into passing it up and remaining an independent adventurer.
GW2 did it well with the protagonist becoming Traehearne's right hand man, learning the ropes of running an operation, and then inheriting it. Season 4 felt great as you became the leader of the coalition to defeat Kralkatorik, and Aurene's champion.
