FFXI had enough meaningless quests. Someone already gave a few examples.
FFXI also had raids (Dynamis).
FFXI also had auto attack.
FFXI also had instances (Dynamis, BCNM and all the other stuff they added later).

So with the same reasoning: Since FFXI was released before WoW, I think WoW copied FFXI. WoW sucks!

So the only two valid points you have are the aggro indicators and the exclamation marks.

Aggro indicators: Why is this such a big deal? You only have to run close to it once to find out if it is aggressive or not. The only thing the aggro indicator did was the take away that first encounter, not a big deal. Future patch will include a turn off mode, so problem solved.

Exclamation marks: 99% of the FFXI players looked stuff up on wiki or another database site anyway. Don't act like everyone was talking to every single NPC, every few levels, to find out if they had a quest.