coming back after extended leave

[Enkidoh]

Welcome back!

1. Levelling is much easier now, due to a recent patch that greatly increased the exp gained through levequests and in dungeons. There's also a new option called 'Duty Roulette' where the Duty Finder randomly selects a dungeon from the list for you to run, and by completing it you gain extra exp, gil, and, if you do it as a level 50, tomes of philosophy and mythology. The bonus is only available once a day though, but it's still well worth doing. Hence FATE grinding is not as common as it used to be.
2. There's much more to do in end-game now - there's the new Labyrinth of the Ancients raid which is a 24-man Alliance, and has some good gear in it, plus there's Extreme-mode Primals, a new dungeon (Pharos Sirius), plus hard-modes for some earlier dungeons (Haukke Manor and Copperbell Mines), a hard-mode version of the final battle (Ultima Weapon), and a new Primal fight (Good King Moggle Mog the XIIth). Not to mention the storyline continues as well from where it left off - go back to the Waking Sands and get started on it. Plus there is also the 'daily beastmen quests' which are repeatable quests you can do for special factions of the sylphs and amalj'aa which give exp, tomes and gil, along with the long-awaited return of Hildibrand from 1.0, so there is much more to do now than there was at launch. And there is still more coming in the next patch too (2.2).
3. I haven't done PvP as it doesn't interest me, so it would be better answered by someone else who knows more about it than me.