Well, I didn't read many other posts, but I would like to ask.

Does the OP even play FFXI anymore?
HNMs in the "main world" are now popped with items you get from instanced KSNMs, the highly camped sky NMs that you need pop items from are pretty much manually popped now (and have been for a long time), just about every NM/HNM in abyssea is manually popped using KI you can usually get solo very easily through gold chests.

Also, even if the main world NMs were like the USED to be still. Who the hell camps NMs outside abyssea still? lol
All that gear is so very outdated. Even Ridill is bad compared to the 3-4 hit trial sword that has MORE dmg which you can get for FREE and SOLO.

Most things in FFXI are not instanced, but them being instanced would solve many complaints. I mean, which makes more sense to you, having an NM in an instanced area, or needing to make THREE ??? locations right by eachother to help popping congestion? I just don't understand the complaints by the OP.