I really would like if SE took the initiative on phasing out PS2 themselves. Instead, they seem content to wait until the last PS2 player's laser burns out and stops reading disks so they're forced to upgrade or quit.

Not that phasing out the PS2 would open the flood gates and make FFXI suddenly awesome. It was still originally programmed for PS2, and it would take nothing short of a complete reboot of most of the code which is a crapload of code after 10 years of expansions and updates.