Looks like 2.1 Patch won't happen until Dec.

[Pellegri]

FFXI is F2P?

Only time the game got new content like new areas, new ways to play, end game addition content is with expansions. Version updates only added new armor and items, bug fixes and changes to the existing game.

And that restriction was there because of how ps2 technology(and older mmo tech) was, they were not capable of constantly upgrading the game with content with how restrictive the ps2 was with an external hd(also the fact that the game is older than WoW and games before that went with expacs to release all their new content, WoW was one of the first to actually have it in patches). If you've only been playing 11 the last 10 years then you've missed out on a lot of changes that have happened with mmos over the years, things changed drastically when WoW came out and showed newer mmos they had a standard to set when they required a subscription.