As far as i'm concerned the way FFXI is awesome.

1 or 2 pieces of hard content which periodically gets made easier and more hard content is added which means newer more casual players can keep up with the better players.

Honestly FFXI is as hard as you make it you can relax and do content 2-3 month after release using the wiki and such or you could be trying to do content on release which is a challenge and is tough.

Either way i love abyssea cause it's a tool that people use to get a decent level fast, so many members in my ls inc me have used it to lvl jobs fast so we can do new content, Remember before in 75 days you need x job to do y so u spend 3 months lvling and gearing 1 job to be told it's been nerfed.

my only issue w/ FFXI is lack of content and that SMN needs a buff badly but that's why i have other games.

Off topic : i solo farmed 90% of my relics since it only takes like 90 dyna runs to make a relic so 3 months on dyna = relic as for weekends i still pull in 120-180 in on weekends and 150-220 on weekdays and i know others that do better.