Originally Posted by
Selindrile
Rose colored glasses, in ye olden days there was plenty of idiocy at what was considered "higher levels" too, well before Abyssea was created. I remember a Whm/Mnk who defended his option to melee in the 50s and made us wait ages to rest because there were no alternate healers around to replace him. In the in the 60s I remember waiting well over an hour for a bard to reach camp in bibiki bay, I had to go escort him because he clearly couldn't find the way, once he got to party, all he ever did was melee and WS, he didn't know bards had magic. I remember Rdms who would refuse to cast any spells on anyone other than themselves, misinformation and myths were far more common then than it was today (largely due to being less informational sites out there). I remember at 75 finding people who didn't even know what the stats did, wearing rediculous gear choices and not understanding abilities, this was not uncommon.
My point is, there always were and will always be idiots, from my own experience there seemed far less of them in the abyssea era than in the years before them, frankly, but I believe that was a function of ease of finding information, rather than anything else.