Actually, reading this list FFXI's start doesn't sound at all worse than FFXIV's.
If this is true:
King Behemoth was already in at launch
FFXI had the AH up less than a month after the game came online (people are still begging for one here).
Before a year had gone by the game already had skillchain+magic burst, exp chains, Chocobos, expansion missions, artifact armor, multiple level cap raises and et al.