Lower the flashiness of abilities to begin with (suggestion)
As a more subtle form of progression, why don't you tone down the flashy effects of all the abilities when you start out as each combat class, and have them gradually become flashier, maybe to what they are right now, as you level to 50. To me that would be amazing, and would help to give ARR more of an rpg feel! I think little design choices like this are incredible, and maybe you could look into more aspects like this for the future.
Also I thought that this post was interesting, even if it's pretty negative http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ss_not_a_hate/
Maybe adding some more weight to some of the animations would be a good idea.