There are games that do the old school social mmo ideas (particularly thinking of the RPG side), but I think largely overall what an mmo is has drastically changed in a general sense. Often there are large, very large, sections of small scale to solo RPG elements, and of course friend features that old school mmo design would be like "wot teh heck? WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'FEATURE'?" but it is so often I think sometimes people are living in a past dimension when discussing like "this genre isn't for you then". Perhaps uncomfortably for some but what an mmo generally means has changed a lot.

Doesn't mean there is no social, but social is often more a suggestion rather than foisted upon a player (for a large amount of content, there are exceptions). Yet there are absolutely people still hanging out chatting and such.

I do think this is where the global / general chat systems have value that SE may be able to take. Novice network is often treated as such, to the chagrin of others lol. I think that just shows the demand some have. An /optional/, perhaps defaulted to off but introduced as you progress through the game, general chat system or system(s) would probably help some people with their social desires. Of course it will probably lean a bit towards the Xroads WoW chat lol, but simply walking around Ul'dah or parts of Limsa feels almost similar xD.