Yea they really need to fork out the changes. I'm sure everyone remembers Yoshida saying they have multiple teams working on different aspects of the game. My hope is that after these battle changes are done their 'world/zone' team have a fix ready to go(even if it's just one zone). Otherwise, I can really see FFXIV dying off when GW2 comes out. Not to mention if they actually started charging before ps3 release everyone would go to GW2 or any other MMO at that point. I think the biggie is they just need to put out some HUGE change(like grid being totally redone) and do it well. If the players can see they can do what it takes to make a good game they'll stick around.

Waiting 1.5 months for a patch is not going to cut it.