FFXI has been ruined by abyssea, they flipped the god switch. Now they're making it grindy to get length, because xiv is taking longer to be ready than anticipated. The timing of it seemed to be "launch ffxiv, in 3 months get xi's cap to 99 so people can be happy, and they'll migrate to ffxiv once they're done" but xiv's launch was a little rocky, and they had to pull something out of their ass to keep xi going.

XI was great because of all the stuff, big and little, to be done. Fame, city missions, choco quest, kazham airship, regular airship, subjobs. But sadly that mentality has changed. Everyone is all "get to the top, do nothing". People don't enjoy the journey anymore, and that's sad. I'd be seriously sad if i had every job at 50. I'm already sad that I have them all at 20.