Gil is the standard currency in every FF game. There's no reason to change this. It's one of the things that anchors the game to the FF universe.

New Players at 2.0 release feel like they can start on a semi even playing field.
The only true way to do this is to let new players create max level characters with a selection of generally available gear of the time. But nobody that leveled their characters the old fashioned way is going to be happy about that.