First of all I agree that most fights in this game feel flat in terms of mechanics. But since FFXI was mentioned (played that since the start of NA release so around 2 years after the japanese release) and I'm really not remembering any fights at that point which did stuff differently. Sure we had no real dodge mechanics like we have here at the moment but for the most part the fights played out the same way if not a bit more limited.

Please don't understand that remark as me saying: No FFXIV:ARR is perfect the way it is. It is not. I'd love to have some of the stuff mentioned in this thread and I really hope that with the coming updates and addons we will get that sort of stuff. But how skill based can they go for if the current "easy mode" can't be completed by a large amount of the playerbase?