Off topic - I really wish people would accept other peoples points-of-view and give constructive arguments for or against them, instead of flaming each other. Does not give a good impression for anyone reading this forums to get an idea of the community. FFXI was sold on it's community spirit.

On topic!

A PTR would enable the devs to get feedback from players directly on the changes, without having to patch it into the live server, then realise it was the wrong thing to do. I am all for this.