Not this crap again.

1) No, SE is not and has not been "Planning to get rid of FFXI". MMOs that survive their first few years don't just up and die unless the company itself is pretty much dead. Ultima Online and Everquest are both older than FFXI and still running. Everquest 2 is only slightly younger than FFXI and still runs as well. And yes, Everquest and Everquest 2 run simultaneously despite both being MMOs made by the same company. People don't just cut off the well-performing first volume when they start up the second. MMOs live as long as their companies are still existent and making some form of profit. FFXI has more than enough subs to meet these criteria.

I'm sorry that I don't recognize anyone's "Internet Common Sense Business Degree", but that's how it is. Just because the game was losing players, and our Dev staff has been reduced, does not mean the parent company has any plans at all to discontinue service.

2) Get the hell out with that Skill vs Time crap. No one cares. It's been said more than enough on these forums and has absolutely nothing at all to do with the amount of "Leveling content" in FFXI. Note that I still use quotes around that term because, as far as I'm concerned, there really isn't "EXP content" in FFXI aside from Quests/Missions with EXP rewards (Campaign, Campaign/Dominion Ops, Besieged, Scroll Quests, FoV, GoV, etc). Killing trash monsters in a group of 6 for hours is not content.

3) When even people here agree that they treat EXP as content because they are unable to get people together to do real content, how the hell would it make any sense whatsoever to start adding arbitrary level caps to old content again? The entire point of raising the level cap on them was to make them more accessible to the people who were unable to do it before. Does that translate into "Easier" to a skilled, or well-connected player? Damn straight. But what sort of skilled or well-connected player hasn't had Einherjar, Dynamis, Limbus, Sea, Sky, Mission lines, and potentially even Salvage done for ages now? Why does this matter to you if it's easier? If you really want to create an artificial challenge for yourself, you can manually level sync down to someone with a level 75 character in those events.

To those that have posted about being unable to do missions, I highly, highly suggest just trying to do them if you can. You would be surprised how much you can accomplish on your own now. Even if you're a squishy Blm. Try different things, see what works best. Honestly, it can be a lot of fun. And of course, if you run into someone else who needs the same mission, or just someone who doesn't mind helping out, that's just a nice bonus.

People in FFXI, and in life really, are always, always, always more ready and willing to help someone who is already putting in a conscious and visible effort. If you ask someone out of the blue if they want to help kill Shadow Lord, you may get lucky and get a yes, but more often than not people are just going to be silent and/or say that they're busy, even if (especially if) they're not. But if you start climbing Castle Z and fighting the Shadow Lord by yourself, and keep a positive attitude ("/l D'oh! Almost had him that time! Bloody Shadow Lord stole my knickers and threw my dingie on the barbie!"), people will not only be more likely to help out if asked, but may even offer to help on their own.