I'm really quite curious, how difficult was FFxi?
Well, if you had the kind of players that the majority of FFXIV seems to be in these nerf threads. No one would have made it to Sky or Sea. Dynamis would maul everyone everytime a MNK, SMN or NIN enemy came. Well, they might get lucky one 1 or 2 mobs, but 2 time out of 3, people mess up stun rotations and such in this game.

Anyway, I agree with OP. Nerfs feels sort of like how they are doing with kids sport these days. Everyone gets a trophy even if they lose the game. I have even heard that they have games where they don't keep score.