Why was FFXI so great?

[Jocko]

Mostly, FFXI had a better sense of progression and pacing, with a variety of content along the way. Every new piece of gear you received, every new form of progression you hit, felt massive and important because you would use what you obtained for your accomplishments over a long period of time. In contrast, in FFXIV, you can power level to 50 in a week, and all of the crafted gear for 1-40, all of the open world NM's that drop level 25-35 gear, the level 25 raid...is all pointless and irrelevant because you speed right by the need for them. That's my biggest hope for 2.0, that it will slow WAY, WAY down, and fill the gap from beginning to end game with meaningful content

An MMO shouldn't be exclusively about endgame, with everything before nothing more than a grind to get there. It should be about the long term journey, with the bulk of the content spread through evenly. The end should be the climax, using everything you learned and obtained to conquer. And once an expansion hits, you start again with a new journey of sorts, following the same principles. At least, that's what I believe

...I suppose that went a bit off topic, though