Excellent post. I agree point for point with everything brought up. To add a bit of my own flavor:

Long term goals
Interesting and rich world/lore
Pleasant and involved community

I believe these to be the three major pillars that make up a successful MMO. As of late, most modern MMO's I've played (Tera, Rift, SWTOR, GW2) often lack all three of these assets, instead focusing on instant gratification, minor gimmicks that do little to advance the genre, and solo oriented experiences. Please don't fall into these trappings Square; you may have blundered in a number of ways with XIV, but by the end of it's lifetime you had reached somewhat of a balance of my three mentioned pillars, making the game a shining beacon for those of us tired of the modern MMO market