Why do people compare this to XI... It flopped thats why they created XIV in a short period of time... Your comparing two things that are not to be compared one failed so they went a different direction...
Ugh, you must be referring to XIV 1.0, because XI is considered one of the most successfull MMORPG in history among others and the most profitable SE project of all. Yeah, it had like 600k subs at most, but for, what, 11 years now?

The reason why we can't go back to XI is because this game exists no more. One day it decided to go modern route and destroed all those things we loved it for.

And yes, to give you some statistics, out of ~1400 people on my server that I keep track of (I actually PRed FFXIV with my own money in some communities) only ~180 haven't left so far. Today a few more said that it's enough for them and they are unsubsribing. So, now, tell me about "vocal minority" of yours.

P.S. I do feel betrayed, because now I don't know how to look in eyes of those people that I invitied to play this game.