I agree totally~!

What happened to casting whenever too near to an element and getting aggro from it??

What happened to walking into a high level area surrounded by undead and if low on health, you would get swarmed by them?

What happened to some areas that needed sneak and others that needed invisibility?

What happened to pulling a mob in some areas and getting a link, hence therefore getting more than 1 mob coming at your group/you.

What happened to NMs or HNMs which was exciting as hell not to mention the item drops were always worth your time ?

I'm not saying that end game should be camping HNMs since that gets boring and repetitive but something in between would be great..

I can keep going but my point is, the way this is now, it is far far too easy. Hell, you are even told what mobs aggro and which don't and when you do get aggro, as someone mentioned here, hit sprint and run for 3 seconds and that's that...

For me those little but important touches are what made FFXI such a challenging and fun game.