The world is not black and white. The entire argument that only one group should be interested in this game will be one-sided, lacking foresight and plainly.. never good.

Look at the situation through SE's shoes. They're working dilligently at improving a game for free that should be bringing them an income. It currently isn't. You can blame it on the previous game development team but if blaming is all we can do, we don't deserve to see them succeed. Either way, when the improvements are done, do you think they want to tap into the smaller market of FF fans or a larger, more global market of casual MMO players AND FF fans?

Every Final Fantasy title has a few things in common: Cid, Chocobos, Moogles, Guardians/Avatars(some, not all), epic storyline, constantly changing battle system and consistently different worlds. Those differences made Final Fantasy and the quality of the games kept us coming back. Is it so much of a stretch if FFXIV gained a whole new market simply by being the next-gen MMO that FFXI never was? Hm... let me think on that...