I swear for some of you this is your first MMORPG.
Probably because XI is a well established MMORPG, made SE the most moneyperiod and still is a great MMO to play for many.
That logic is like saying Blizzard is embarrassed that people continue to play the original Starcraft when Starcraft II and World of Warcraft exist.
Edit: Let's break some stuff down in detail.
re: Grinds -
Every Online or MMORPG has grinds. The issue comes in the type of grind. FFXIV for example, mr Yoshida stated the Relic grind was designed around the acquisition time and difficulty of obtaining a weapon from Alexander Gordias Savage 4 - Why was that necessary? They could have developed the relic grind on it's own regard and had a full set of content developed specifically for it.
They didn't, or they "couldn't."
Current FFXI reforging grind - Perfectly fine. The items are extremely common and not limited compared to, you know, Ancient Currency/Alexandrites/Ampoules/Etc. Most of us playing had plenty of those items laying around, to the point of even vendering or tossing them. They come from extremely easy High Tier battles (if you're current, which you should be if you're reforging anything) and you chose to get a Mythic and Ergon weapon? Cool! You got an amazing weapon for your job (seriously, what other option does Geomancer and Rune Fencer have realistically?)
re: Submenus.
It's an MMORPG designed on end of era Playstation One and early Playstation 2 dev kits from the late 1990s. What do you expect?
re: Ending console support.
As popular of an excuse this is for players on both games, PS2/360/PS3/PS4 is not holding back either games. The reality of the situation is, them losing their PS2 dev kits hurt far more than any "PS2 limitations" could ever have hurt.
I mean, compare XI to XIV for a minute:
Look at all that XI has done and can do, despite being an MMO developed in the late 90s. Now look at XIV ARR/HW, a PC DEVELOPED MMORPG that barely can function at times. You can use the excuse "but they built off of FFXIV 1.0..." but in the end, look at Blade and Soul, Archage or any other PC only MMO out currently - Why do they still all play like it's 2005? Where's the innovation?
See? Consoles hold nothing back that the developers themselves aren't already holding back. Even WoW stagnated, which is why it's bleeding subs. Hell, the WoW stagnation is why XIV ARR even was successful, because it tapped into a market of players desperate for something to play. ARR wasn't terrible, but honestly, release ARR in an era when WoW was king and see how well it would have done.