SE moving slow is most likely due to their resources being cut since FFXIV is not a revenue generator.


Even still, I believe their progress has been under par.
If I were to compare FFXIV to original EQ, which is 13 years old, SE has performed poorly.
It took them 3 years to make EQ, while SE took 5 on FFXIV.
Within their first year EQ had 3 end game areas with end game armor for all classes, Plane of Fear, Hate and Sky.
11 months after release EQ was ready with their first expansion which doubled the size of the game, increased the level cap from 50 to 60, and had quests for epic weapons for every class that took several months to complete.
After 3 years EQ was releasing 2 expansions a year, every Feb and Oct.

And while doing all that with EQ, they had a small team and not dozens of other MMOs on the market to imitate.