I have to say that I have to, begrudgingly, agree with the OP on this.

I played FFXI for a long time and stopped playing it about a year ago due to RL commitments. I picked up this game expecting somewhat of a similar take on the WoW formula whilst hoping many of the Final Fantasy elements would remain. It hasn't quite happened that way and the only things that make it feel like a Final Fantasy game are the Primals, Chocobo's and Cid. Very little else is present.

This game was very enjoyable for the first few weeks. I could not sing its praises enough. But it is now starting to stagnate and become ordinary very quickly. Spamming the same FATES over and over is just far too easy and no challenge is presented except to dodge the occasional AOE.

The immersion is slowly drifting away and it's only the beauty of the zones and the fact that I have yet to fully max out a battle class and take part in most of the endgame dungeons that keeps me going.

I've subbed for 3 months in the hope that the update will stabalise a few issues (notably the economy) but I can't help but feel SE likes this WoW model they've created - especially if it brings in more money than FFXI ever did.

We shall see.