The game's still early, but given all their experience from XI they should have come up with better. 2.2 will improve things a bit, but I'm worried about a perpetual cycle of patches rehashing the same old **** blocks and tired, predictable mechanics.

It would be nice if we could more freely meld our gear like in 1.23, or at least have abjuration gear like in XI that's crafted first and then you have to fight super strong NMs for the items to lift the curses - ANYTHING to make crafting relevant at endgame. Crafting & Gathering were supposed to be central to the game but they've been tossed aside to please the super-casuals who only care about getting their next shiny fix ASAP.

Melded gear should be the best in the game like before, because the risk and cost associated with it was perfectly balanced. So what if some guy has an item with 5x STR V materia in it? Given the horribly low success rates on forbidden melds, I'd say it's more than fair - especially since Materia prices would likely sky rocket as a result.