I honestly don't feel the lack of a stamina system is necessarily a positive. I like having limits on how much a game can be played. I think it's going to encourage the devs to make things super grindy :\
While this is true, there are some games (Naruto, I'm looking at you!) that has a stamina system as well as being super-grindy. I've played a few games in the past that didn't have a stamina-based system (Rune Story, comes to mind), and they didn't seem any more grindy than others I've played that used stamina. Bleach Brave Souls has stamina (tickets), but they replenish super quickly (all five within 75 minutes). That game isn't grindy either, unless you go for specific missions that require you to clear a certain event an (insert) number of times.
But yes, time will tell. Even if SAO is super-grindy, I still appreciate that I don't NEED to log in and burn stamina when I don't have the time. I know I don't necessarily need to do it in my other games either, but I feel that pressure of having the stamina being wasted if I don't. At least with SAO, I don't have to worry about that.
I had to semi-quit GBF too, I just log in for the free items now. I just couldn't manage it in addition to everything else I played.
Do you guys have any suggestion for a good gacha game to start playing? The last one I played was Kingdom Hearts Unchained, which I probably liked more than I should have simply due to the KH link. I'd like something with a good-ish gameplay and that doesn't require you to play/grind every day due to limited events.
One Piece Treasure Cruise is great for keeping the "powercreep" in-check, but there can be a lot of farming/grinding with it in leveling your skill/socket levels. I'm hesitant to recommend SAO since I literally just started playing it so I don't know what the endgame will look like.
If I had to suggest one for a "newbie", I'd probably go with Bleach Brave Souls. There's very little grinding to be done in leveling your characters, and the events are super-simple in that you can get the 4* character drop (and other items) easily enough within the first few days (oftentimes, the first day). The rest can be spent farming it for more points/lottery rewards/etc. for bonus items, but it's just extra and not really needed. Most of the missions for each event entails beating Very Hard 30 times, which is easily doable. They're extremely generous in handing out in-game currency, and a lot of the characters look/feel different from one another. Stamina is used in the form of tickets, where you have a maximum of five. Each one replenishes at a rate of one per 15 minutes, but you can get more through daily login's as well as rewards from lottery-based events (as well as completing certain missions). It also helps if you're a fan of the franchise, like I am.