So you are telling me that FFXI had no elitism whatsoever? My 8 years of playing would say that is a lie. You could be left in the dust for not even being the job people desired like Puppetmaster and Beastmaster. You could not get invited for simply not having a Haubergeon on your melee DPS. You could not get invited for not having the sub of choice. You could not get invited basically for missing the simplest piece of gear. FFXI may of not had an official gear check, but the community sure as hell made one. If you were not good enough to claim, you would get the boot. I could really go on. Don't put FFXI on this high pedestal of gaming community because end game elitism in it was one of the most toxic communities I had ever endured. At least in games like WoW, elitists kept to themselves and didn't interfere with other players. In FFXI, elitists took over HNM's, open areas like Sky/Sea, and "one group only" instance content like Dynamis. The game was quite inaccessible to any new end game LS's and a lot quit after realizing it. Not to mention it led to nasty things such as botting and flame wars in game and on 3rd party forums.
At least in ARR, you and your friends can go at your own pace without any interference of other groups. If one group doesn't let you in, there will be another who will. You will always deal with a bad side of a community in any game, it is your choice to keep hanging out with them or not, no one is forcing you to. That is why certain content with FFXI is outdated so you don't have to interact with these so called "elitist".
I am well aware that sub is gone, I never said it was still up. Also, you should correct yourself, "you" don't feel the sense of adventure and immersion. I however do. The areas are gorgeous and well designed, there are a lot of times I like to just run through with my goobue mount and look at everything around me getting to my destination instead of just teleporting there. I like how active the world is. There is a lot going on in each zone and no area feels dull or out of place. FFXIV's original map had little to nothing with copy/pasted terrain that just confused the hell out of you. I never cared what was outside of Eorzea may look like till ARR came out. Your definition of immersion and adventure is not the set way. It can be defined as many different things from many different people. If it isn't your cup of tea, then I would go back to FFXI where it does satisfy your needs. Again, let FFXIV be it's own thing.
Then shouldn't you go back to the FFXI forums and tell them you want your game back? Don't take it out on FFXIV because they decided to change FFXI, a completely different game.