To Square Enix, these are the reasons why I am currently unsubbed from the FF14.

[ManuelBravo]

Firstly, yes, this character is an alternate. Actually, it's not even an alternate - I quit for a period of time from late 2.x to late 3.x. When I returned, I created a new character on a new server, as many of my friends had migrated. I didn't update my Forum avatar...

Secondly, from my perspective, there actually hasn't been much that changed since 2.0. Let me run through the list of examples you brought up, because I think it's a decent case study.

First nice , just out of curiosity what is your main character and how far you into the game?

Cross Job Stuff: These really didn't change in a way that enriched the game experience. We no longer had to level other jobs to access cross-job abilities, but that actually removed content rather than added anything. The abilities added, with few exceptions, were not functionally different from anything else that existed before. Rescue is one counter-example, though due to how the game is balanced, it certainly doesn't have any real use outside of maybe Savage / Ultimate content where AoE can actually kill you in a hurry. Beyond being irritated that most of my 'role' abilities were yanked from what I used to have natively (I play WHM), it didn't change the experience of the game in any way that I noticed even half an hour later.
Dungeons: I'd argue these haven't been changed at all since 2.0. There are new coats of paint and a handful of new mechanics, but Hells' Lid and Fractal (Hard) don't play any differently than Amdapor Keep and Wanderer's Palace did back in 2.0 (beyond being significantly easier). Similar conclusions are reached if we extend this study to Trials, or Raids. The primary issue here is that new mechanics simply don't alter much beyond one's movement patterns, which is a very trivial change. If new mechanics dramatically altered how one played their job throughout the fight - Abyssea's proc system is a good example - this would be a non-issue. Alas, though, this isn't the case.
Housing: This one's new, I'll give you that. And it's a fantastic addition, even taking into account all of the numerous implementation issues. We need more broad expansions of content like Housing.
Gear: I really don't think gear has changed at all. It changes nothing but the damage we can output and take. Where are the items like the AF sets in FFXI, which actually altered the behaviour of some abilities? What about items like Scorpion Harness, that noticeably alter your ability to perform certain party roles like shadow-tanking? There are none, and that's a missed opportunity.

Cross Job Stuff; those were a few things they did, based on usage certain actions were removed and only key elements were kept, also they did both add and made adjustments based on Feed back. I could pull every article and patch and suggest you take the time to read some of those to see how it has improved.

Dungeons: They have made them more appealing and less of a grind to an extend. Before people use to take almost an hour with the exception of main dungeons which cant take over 60 min to complete. How did it change? Dungeons should not take more than 20 min, if anything they can be done in 10 min with proper set up and if well gear. Do to feed back they made it so one of the main dungeons CS can't be skipped. ( The Praetorium ) use to be able to run it and clear it in under 20 minutes, now can take 60+, what did SE do raised the xp and tomes to compensate. Keep in mind this is old content. While I understand everyone pays, most should not suffer. Again people are not satisfied which is my point. Some new dungeons also helped test mechanics, included voices, made to make people learn mechanics which to my surprise many still can't learn the basic. Either do to ignorance, they expect to be carried, or blinded by having over gear thinking they can by pass by pure zerg methods. Yes some can be but not all. People are still ignorant.

Housing: While it is considered to be optional content SE has made it's best effort to please people keeping in mind the stability of servers. The biggest issue was that people were flipping housing to make large amounts of gil. It was not against terms of use like many claimed, it was not unfair, people were just smarted and were able to corner the market. So what did SE do? Made restrictions to try and be fair, added districts, apartments , demolition times for accounts not active ( people complained regardless being their own fault and blamed the product for their negligence ), all based on FEED BACK. It surprises me that people compare FFXIV to other games knowing fully well that this is not a F2P game, and SE does several things to remind players of demolition. What are players excuses? I have better things to do than check my email, I had RL issues, I could not afford to log back in. These are some excuses I have read. I look back and think really? What is SE your guardian or something? They did their part IT IS NOT THE PRODUCTS FAULT that issues come up. It is our responsibility to accept their terms IF we want to play. Blaming a product for our short comings is just being childish.

Gear Let see Materia, over melding, and now AF gear with guarantee 5 slot melding, Relic weapons that have come alive ( Anima ), PvP gear, glamour, ...yeah I'm sure nothing has changed. This one of the reasons why I even doubt some of your remarks. To me it seems you have not really explored all of the aspects of this game. Even if FFXI I use to shadow tank with NIN ,however NIN IS NOT A TANK HERE. FFXI is still harder than this game and while it's foundation may be based of FFXI not all of the same rules apply. I miss a lot of the aspects of FFXI and really wish they would implement some of them. Little by little SE has been listening, and have tried to find ways to reach out to those of us that want that. Is it what we want? NO, however they are being creative and trying.

To dive further into your Eureka example, I agree that a lot of people pre-judged the content. That said, so did SE: they pre-judged it so badly, in fact, that they didn't appear to have anticipated the formation of FATE trains (the content is clearly not balanced or designed around them), which is almost an unforgivably bad fuck-up. It's largely what killed off the potential Eureka had to alter a different experience, actually: the key difference between Eureka and non-Eureka was XPing via party camps. Between the FATE train imbalance and the lack of a Level Sync, however, it's almost impossible to experience the content as intended, and get a truly different feel from what FFXIV typically offers. That's a shame. I'm hoping they rectify it in the 4.3x Eureka content, but it's hard to say.

With this comment you have really lost credibility. First of FATE TRAINS have been around long before Eureka, or Diadem. So I doubt that they were blind to the idea of that happening. It's common sense that it would have been used in Eureka. Low exp, yet high xp on fates. Fate Trains are made by players not SE, even now people that afk during FATE Trains, it's not an SE issue. It's the player community decision to keep them in parties. Regardless SE made that inactivity rule and closed instance to try and please people based on feed back. Learned from FFXI about burn parties and for saw this happening. It's nothing new here or in many other games. If you can't piece this together from these sentences there really is no point in even debating.

To finish with this , unless your a programmer, have some knowledge in business, you will only keep a narrow perspective of what you consider to be reality. Your perception, reality, simple. However, the reality is that SE is running a business, it has made many attempts to please everyone on the spectrum running from sprouts to veterans. Will they ever find middle ground, unlikely. Have you ever competed in their contest for designing gear? It's a way that they reach to us to get ideas of what a gamer want to see. Did you happen to see the upcoming video for 4.3? lots of feed back is being answered there. IF you step back and look at the big picture they are working smart not hard.