I totally agree with RicharButte on the guildleve gradients. It's so damn annoying. However, I do think the difficulty for roaming monsters is accurate, it is almost the same as FFXI. I do remember them saying that there are darker shades of red, the monster being more difficult the darker it is. This is sort of like FFXI. If you saw a monster that was Incredibly tough, whether it was 10 levels above you or 30 is irrelevant, it will still show as IT and therefore should not be engaged solo. So, it really depends on the level of the monster when it comes to difficulty.