Lack of national origin or content.
Excuse me if this has been discussed before, but it's something I'd hopefully like to see addressed in some manner.
You know, I can't help but think about the lack of national origin and content in FFXIV. I understand the desire to allow players to choose whichever nation they please without thought of the extra loot received by choosing correct race/nation combos(IE:FFXI), but it feels less, for a lack of a better word "proud".
I don't feel as though the cities are proud, or alive. I feel as though they are not really brought together as a people in any way, shape or form. They are more of "set random npc race in random location". That then makes the city feel like Guildleve hub with random npcs to fill it out. More to the point, the player has zero connection to their capital. Also cheapened is the choosing of another nation that is not the one from which your race is from.
On a related note more allegiance driven content, such as is present in FFXI would add vast amounts of life into the world. Remember that rewards of value are the sure fired way to keep players coming back and defending that outpost or conquering that zone for your nation. That in turn will give FFXIV more of a heartbeat, and would be one nice content addition to fill that "I'm bored, need something to do" niche, as well.
As of today, the top two games, in my opinion, that have done this best are FFXI, as well as WoW. Though I believe that neither have really hit the pinnacle of what this continually cycling content could be, they have a good start.