Western MMO linear dungeon/raid design is horrible. Now with that said so is XIV's current dungeon design more so then western design.

The dungeons need to not be linear (LINEAR GO IN KILL MINI BOSS => KILL MAIN BOSS IS BAD DESIGN), there needs to be multiple paths/objectives in each dungeon, Traps, Unlock-able special fights, rare spawn in the dungeons themselves, and they need to trash the speed runs. Give alot more dept to the dungeons and increase the time limit to 120 mins (with or without time extentions).

Storyline needs to be improved so I agree 100% with the OP on this. ToR is not a good example though... they need to look at their previous FF games for story and lore, still very little games that can compete with SE on the story line of past final fantasy games.

on Drop rate I despise people being able to get the best gear quick in current mainstream mmos.. it is a mmo not an offline rpg. Tokens are fine but they need to require real work as well. So say 15 tokens and you get a piece of Darklight gear from that dungeon, boss chest has 100% chance of dropping each other chest has a 15% chance of 1 droping or something. People will scream about that as well... but that is a 100% garenteed 1 of the best pieces in the game every 3days basically if you are in a decent ls and do not free for all them. Best gear should be time consuming and should require alot of work. If everyone can get it easily then the content is negated in weeks.

The best gear is not required for anything in XIV, it is a reward for those who put in the time to WORK for it. That is my view on the best gear in any game.