FFXI was stupid, im gonna be honest, the fact that for most of your life, you could be terminated by easy prey was foolish. Having nothing to do if you didnt have a party was foolish, needing to have 2 jobs or being unable to party was foolish, needing to have 2 more jobs or your exp was gimped was foolish.

Running around a moogle waiting for a whm/rdm or pld/nin to pop was stupid. Solo play needs to be viable for those who want to do it, not everyone wants to set up a party for 30 min to an hour. some people only have an hour to play the game. An mmo should be a large world allowing people of many different types of playstyles and interests to interact together.

Difficulty is not about solo vs party, difficulty is difficulty, the difficulty in this game at lower levels or small groups is pretty decent, the difficulty for large groups is not. they need to make content for both types, raising the exp cap would go a long way in this respect. Doing what the op says wont be bad, IF they increase sp across the board, (fighting things weaker as well) but honestly i think we are going to have them weaken us substantially with the next battle system, and i dont think our sp per mob will go up to compensate. So, we shall see.