Yay! Grats! It's a wonderful mount, glad you're enjoying it!
Completely agree. I have alts on some of those servers and even without additional xp boosts like from gear the xp gain is very high. I agree there should be a boost for preferred servers, but it should not be as strong as it currently is.
The chocobo porters are quite cheap, especially in lower lvl zones. To me this says that this is intended for use by players who do not yet have a mount. I disagree with reducing the lvl requirement for a mount to be as low as lvl 10, however I completely agree that chocobo porters should be better connected. Chocobo porters do fly in HW and beyond zones. I suspect that this is not yet the case in ARR because player mounts flying has been introduced there in just the last major patch, which is only about two weeks ago. I think it's only a matter of time before they can fly there too.
By the way I came from WoW to this game and the current mount system or porter system did not annoy me at all. But every player is different. I just happen to feel this way. It's fine if someone else doesn't. I can understand where the criticisms come from.
The dream. THE DREAM. I would adore a crafting bag. Even if it only held raw materials that can be gathered. Even just that would vastly improve things for me.
The sprout icon does need to persist for longer. I suspect its drop off point has not been updated in quite a while.
You bring up an excellent point about changing roles. Just because you are no longer a sprout does not mean you have experience in every role. I think it would be a good idea to have the icon reappear when you play a role that you have recently unlocked. Maybe a slightly different icon to signify you are new to the role but not new to the game.
I also would like if New Game + gave xp, even if it's less than the first time you do the quests. I understand SE don't want the quests to be farmed for crazy xp or gil, but even just a little would be nice.
Your post was a nice read and you did bring up some truly valid points. I'm delighted that you're enjoying the game. Hopefully some of the things you want to be improved will come soon.