Short Answer: Not anymore!

Square-Enix has deemed, like a lot of game developers these days, that the need for challenge and gradual progression is just not necessary (in order to make a lot of winners, hence more money). Too many people cried, "Timesink this, timesink that", leading to a massive overcompensation to where immersion, adventure, depth and gameplay have all taken a back-seat to the gear grind. Sure, they needed to cut out some of the ridiculous wait times/windows for certain things but instead of doing just that, they threw the baby out with the bath water, all but negating much of the game pre-99.

With this recent update, I feel like they've finally just thrown in the towel. No more effort to get your OP gear, even less need for crafters to make weapons/equips and teleports to anywhere just a few feet away. Hell, they didn't even try when creating models for the new gear; Recycled fisherman's tunic model on your 99 PLD? - You realize how stupid that looks? When I first saw someone in a full set of the Eminence gear, I thought "Wow, a Lv25 WAR in proper equips, that's rare..."

I actually got my hopes up that due to the RoE Level sync quest that people would be willing to go out and party again (I did see a 6/6 group doing beetles in Altepa after the update). Tried yelling, tell spam a few times and nobody was up for it. Probably getting my hopes up anyway. I'm sure I'd just end up teaching everyone how to play and dealing with a lot of gimp skills. Anyway, ta-ta!