WoW is actually harder than XI in a lot of respects, it is just that XI was much more curel. WoW raid boses were dynamic, engaging and tough with gear available before you killed the boss. a dungoen comes out and NONE of the 14 million players that paly it compelte the dungion before 3-4 months is not an easy game.

AV and PW were masochistic hatefull bastards with 0 clues to how to kill them and the penalties for failure where so harsh that the rewards were not worth the substantial effort to learn their mechanics. THe mechanics might not even be that hard but getting 30+ people together to try to Kill AV considering the farming for the mats, the death penalties and the general headach was not worth it so AV didn't die without exploits, that does not make a game hard either, it makes it just cruel and mean.

Prommy missions were challenging, Nyzul floors were challenging, Einherjar was interesting but needed more mechanics other than basic unavoidable AOE damage from boses.

Basically WoW had little penalty for failure so they could make the boses have some really interesting mechanics, were FFXI was unforgiving so in order to beat the boss before suicide, the boss needed to be relativly easy. (remember a kid died trying to kill PW) If your saying wow is just easier than FFXI then you never palyed WoW at the higher levels, jsut becuase FF beats on noobies done'st make it harder, just meaner.