If the game can't recover with 2.0 and their "relaunch", then i could see them evaluating f2p. Hell, that's probably the only way i'll get any of my RL friends to play it again.

Anyone who played mmos (which sadly at the time was Wow'ers) made fun of ffxi people for how tedious/boring leveling was (though at least it had a sense of accomplishment)... if you mention ffxiv to anyone who's played anything they laugh. Its going to take a miracle to get any sort of respect back in the gaming community.