FFXIV 1.0 had a lot of "new" things to the MMO Genre.. let aside the flaws it had, it had some great innovations which people actually didnt like because it was "new" and some things were far away from being easy to understand. Battle-Regimens were a great combined with the Incap System ( 15 man parties were fun as hell with that ), but yeah.. people found it too complicated, same with the early Crafting System. Monster AI was also great, where monster reacted to you depending on what you did and mobs also fought each other on the field. DoH/DoL Content like Hamlet was also great, same with the actual Minigames.. the list goes on..

It comes down to that people dont like "new" things and always compare it to things they know and like. So MMO's today will just go with standards and add their own "feel" to it. There is nothing wrong with that, but people have to keep in mind that wanting new things have also a downside like XIV 1.0 showed. ( let the bugs and flaws here aside here )