I often hear people (not everyone, but a big chunk) talk about how great the old FFXI was. Usually CoP era, but certainly pre-Abyssea/Adoulin. I was just wondering how many people would be interested in playing on a server (if SE came round to the idea) that had just the older expansions on?

Maybe it's 'Nostalgia Vision', I don't know. All I can say is I didn't start the game until Abyssea was already out and I regret not having started sooner if the game really was as good as people claim back then.

If SE decided to put out a single server in addition to what's already available that didn't have Abyssea/Adoulin added features would you be interested or not? Is the idea itself worthy of consideration or just being said by a vocal minority?

This came to mind as I was reading the FFXIV forums, it seems there are a lot of people there who are trying to mold that game into becoming a FFXI v2.0

Here's an example of one of the posts there:

I've said for a long, long time now; I'd subscribe and play for years to ffxi IF a server was made with the old rules, old loot system, old hnm pop system, old leveling system, and everyone on said server was level 1.

You know, a basic roll back to the release of the game, stagger out expansions on the same schedule over the next decade. Yeah, it's hard core and not for everyone, but I'd sign up in a heartbeat for that!
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/145003-Return-to-FFXI?p=1862359&viewfull=1#post1862359