I'm also a FF fan who made to leap to an MMO for the 1st time. I primarily play solo though I'm part of a small FC with friends of friends of friends - other than being able to chat, an advantage is having a small house with a garden and, as of next patch, a private room and chocobo breeding :-)

I play on average 10-15 hours a month - sometimes it's all in a single weekend, sometimes it's an hour a day for a week or two, I don't sweat it and don't set any goals or limits. In regards to your comment on dedication, I read somewhere that this game rewards more hardcore players for their effort, and more casual players for their patience. Needless to say, with my limited play time, patience trumps effort in my case.

So that's it's for question 1 & 4; for the #2, the answer is yes, for #3 I've found more negativity in the forums than in the game itself - you find more of a *very* vocal minority here - in the game I've had 2 instances out of hundreds (thousands?) where I thought to myself, this is not a very nice person, and I reported someone once. Otherwise people usually play nice and some are downright pleasant & helpful :-)

#5 - no idea; #6 I'm a FF fan & a story and lore fan - I love my custscenes and read all tidbits that I can find - I wish we had books like in Skyrim! - so the positive is the story itself and the absolute beauty of the world. The negative atm for me is the grind required in end game for gear/weapons, you name it - If you've read the forums, I'm sure you saw people complaining about the Atma drop rates, I'm waiting until they're better, even if it takes 3, 6, 9 or 12 more months - at 10-15 hours a month play time, I'd probably end up with the weapon at the same time as if I waited in any case :-), so I've decided to simply ignore everything after hard mode primals and play different classes to unlock their lore & quests. I've been able to level about 1 class between each major patch, which is fine with me, I go up 1-2 levels each time I log on so every 2-3 times I get a new class or job quest with lore and that makes me happy :-)

#7 Hildibrand! They are the funniest, most absurd quest lines ever!