I think you are recognizing a problem but misplacing the blame.
In my oppinon, the real problem here is not elitism. That may be a symptom of the problem, but it is not the disease.
The way I see it, the root of this problem is a combination of things:
- Only a handful of jobs are really useful in delve. So the majority of players that farm delve on a regular basis, generally do so on jobs they don't enjoy as much and view it as work. They usually want to do it the most efficient way they can for the work they put in.
This is something I think job/content adjustments to promote more job inclusion would go a long way to allieviate.
- There is no auto-group function so it usually falls to one person to organize, shout, give instructions, listen to bitching...blah blah.
This is the major issue creating the lack of demand for pickup DDs. This is just simple economics. Anytime you have a supply (lots of DDs sitting around) this high with demand (limited shout groups being formed) this low...the price (R/E/M/D requirements) goes up.
It's fine to say "Well, these lazy players should just form their own groups" but in all practicality that logic doesn't work.
For starters, the majority of FFXI players don't read these forums, BG, research Wiki's, or even have basic understanding of game mechanics and job roles in an alliance setting. So the mere IDEA of forming a group of up to 17 strangers is a preeeetty daunting task.
Even lots of intelligent, talented, skilled players are just not cut out to be leaders. Social Anxiety, Poor communication skills, language barriers, poor conflict resolution skills, etc are not uncommon in our community.
IT CAN TAKE HOURS for even skilled delve leaders to form a PUG. It can be a very off-putting exerience. And if your PUG members see that you are bringing sub-par jobs with sup-par gear, getting sub par plasm per run...you will start to see it take even longer to fill your shout groups. Probably leading to burn out form trying to build delve groups and eventual unsubscription.
- There are lots of people sitting around waiting for shouts that have all of the things being asked for.
So while I agree that there is a lot of negativity right now, I disagree that playerbase attitude problems are the root problem.
I think its the lack of built in grouping functionality, lack of fixes to important problems, and recent drastic changes that flipped an 11 year old game flat on its head that is causing the negativity.
I don't think it will change either without some serious work from the development team that they do not seem to have the resources to pull off.