Welcome back, Aramyth.

I don't know how full Figaro is. But it's possible that the game world seems empty because of the city you're in. Right now, most players have migrated to Uldah. Gridania tends to be a ghost town, and Limsa Lominsa is relatively empty. If you want to find more players, head over to Uldah. The streets and camps tend to be busier there, and the market wards are much more full. If it's helpful, here's a link to a post I did giving directions from Gridania to Uldah.

I realize some people are pretty down on the game -- just look at this thread! -- but there are people playing and having a good time. As others have suggested, I'd strongly suggest getting into a Linkshell as soon as possible. Check the Figaro forums and see if any linkshells are advertising there. Or search the New Player forum posts for others from Figaro looking for people to run around with. Or just go to Uldah and /shout that you're looking for a linkshell. The game is much, much more enjoyable if you can play it with others. The community in this game is, in my opinion, the best thing it has going for it. (While the boards tend to be really, really negative, the actual players are a lot of fun.)

If you're looking for things to do, I'd suggest starting with leves. Right now, that's the primary way to level in the game. Find some linkshell mates, and run leves together. You pick them up at the same place as those starter quests. But since you're level 12 now, you can do leves for the level 10 camps (or the level 1 camps). One more level, and you can get leves for the level 20 camps. Other than leves, you can do behest every 30 minutes, or you can do side quests, and when you hit level 20, you can start doing main storyline quests, job quests, and you can pick up even more side quests.

If you got to level 12 shortly after launch, I think you're going to be surprised at how much has changed. It now takes about an hour to get to level 12. You're going to fly through those early levels. (I rerolled a character, ran 1 tutorial leve on 4 stars, and got to level 5 from one leve.) UI lag has significantly improved, and I think the game in general has improved by leaps and bounds. And they're working to improve the amount of content, which has always been my biggest complaint about the game. There's supposed to be a big patch coming in the next few weeks that will add more content, and will lay the groundwork for a new battle system, which they'll be implementing over the summer. So big changes are on the horizon.

As for the control system, I play with mouse/keyboard, but I know several people who totally agree with you that the system is clunky. I have a linkshell mate who started out playing with mouse/keyboard, and then decided that the system was obviously designed for controllers (like the PS3). So he switched over to a controller, and he became almost evangelical, trying to convert everyone he knew to a controller. If you don't like the current set-up, maybe give a controller a try? (The developers have already said they're planning to work to improve the UI for mouse/keyboard. So that's a work in progress, although I wouldn't expect to see it completely redesigned for several months.)

You're certainly free to listen to the naysayers and wait a while before coming back. But if you feel like giving it a shot, please don't let them talk you out of it. It's worth mentioning that along with the other big changes on the horizon, they'll be de-emphasizing leves as a method of leveling up; in the next patch, they're going to try to turn them into primarily solo content that you can enjoy when you're short on time. Apparently, the primary way to level up will be quests and dungeons, and probably some grinding, although we'll have to wait and see what they have in store.

Regardless when you come back, I hope you have fun. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.