I don't know where are this doom and gloom posting comes from in the recent weeks.

I find random dungeons, group finder trials, battlegrounds within 3-5 minutes. And when I put stuff up for sale I am usually annoyed that everything has sold withing 24 hours and I have to put up new stuff or my guild master is mad. XD

And when in public dungeons or delves I am usually 'oh no all the bosses are dead already' and have to wait. So the game is absolutely not dead.

I also expect a huge influx of players for the wall event and the next Vengeance test. Especially now that the summer season is over on the server that I play.

That's PC EU. Maybe on PC US everything is super dead, no idea... But you don't need 100 000 concurrent steam players to have fun in ESO.

Reading this, you might think that a lot of players suffer from “speed runners.” The fact is, however, that when I use the random dungeon finder, I experience speed runs in 80 out of 100 cases. Even on vet. So it's a minority of players who are upset about the gaming behavior of the absolute majority. I think people who have a problem with speedrunners should start their own groups. Not the other way around.
That aside, I don't think a confirmation check is necessary. For me personally, that wouldn't be beneficial. I am often pulled into the fight as a tank, even with my consent and also as dd or healer. You can easily skip obstacles and useless trash like this. Often, you are also pulled into the fight in trials after you joined a group which is already waiting at the boss. This already results in a loss of time = loss of dps, and as a tank, every second counts when bosses are not taunted. A confirmation check would just be another unnecessary delay.

Things companions should have in my opinion - helmets, swimming, mounted swimming, subclassing for companions ( since we have it for our characters, why shouldn't we be able to match their lines to ours ?). Trading - let them hold our items like in the solo tes games. Let them use skins,body markings, hair styles ( everything that we can use ).

I think you should be able to use body markings, hair styles and everything on them. ZoS didn't seem to like the idea of customizing them much. Ember's hair is so bad.

While I do like the idea of reinforcing class identity, I'd personally prefer it if ZOS focused on balancing the skill lines themselves.

I believe a ‘pure’ Sorcerer or Nightblade can already parse noticeably higher than, for example, a thematic setup using Storm Calling, Ardent Flame, and Winter’s Embrace at the moment. Adding extra buffs to pure classes just widens that gap, even if it would help them catch up a bit to meta subclass setups.

If underperforming skill lines and abilities were improved instead, however, both pure classes and subclass setups would benefit, which feels like a more balanced and longer-term solution to me.