I definitely think they should look to FFXI for inspiration in their quests. As stated by a few above, many looked at FFXI's quests as pointless and honestly... in terms of progression many were. But what they did was cement the lore into the game.

One quest from XIV stands out to me, the one from the mithra selling drinks in Ul'Dah. She mentions that Thanalan was once a lush forest that overtime became the barren wasteland that it is today. It's lore like this that helps me immerse myself in the game and helps me to suspend my disbelief to make this world of Eorzea so much more believable. *mutters* Unlike the giant-ass squirrels now... /sigh

Anyway, yeah, these first batch of quests were bland and involved killing 8 things... seriously, every quest... 8 mobs?

FFXI had great quests. Many of them even had brief cutscenes that gave it a real cinematic feel. I don't think the devs need to be so afraid of using FFXI as inspiration. I mean... let's face it... they're 50/50 right now. They've had one successful MMO and one... well... let's just call a spade a spade, failure. I know they don't want to make a clone of FFXI but that doesn't mean they can't be inspired by the better things the game did right. Cutscenes and for the majority, I use CoP as my primary example, story they did right.

Don't be afraid to borrow ideas from your successful predecessor, especially when one considers how many of their current players are FFXI vets.