Your post echoes my own thoughts OP.

I've been in no hurry to get to 50. One time a while back, I had joined a party, and before we went our separate ways the leader commented on the amount of xp gained. With no disrespect intended to him, I felt no such sense of accomplishment. When a level takes hours, I see no reason to be proud of it, myself.

As you put it, I play these games for the adventure, although I suppose I never thought it out that much before. I guess thats why endgame has held little interest for me. Typically, people expect you to have "studied up" for an endgame fight before stepping into it. Some have pushed developers to precision in the difficulty, having brought endgame battles down to a science for themselves. Macros, battlelogs, etc. I find no sense of adventure in that, personally. It's not that I don't try to "be the best at my game," but some people take all the fun out of it, in my opinion.

Just my 2 gil.
/happily swings sledgehammer and whistles "I'll be working on the railroad."