Chocobo not being a given, you had to work to get a significant number of GC seals at level for it.

Titan HM was challenging, and you couldn't queue for it. So people stood around in Mor Dhona looking for parties like classical MMORPGs, and everyone wanted to do it because he's the last step to finishing a vanilla Relic Weapon. Taught me the value of getting more expensive tome gear first; accessories might be cheaper but they do nothing for your VIT, which was a necessity for surviving his party-wide AoEs.

Demon Wall was a real challenge.

Relic Atmas were super low drop rate. Could go days farming FATEs for them, only to find out in the end all they really did was palette swap the Relic Weapon and you had to do another long-ass grind afterward to actually make it better.

3 new dungeons per patch was god-damn heaven, compared to 1 these days.

Catboys everywhere.