In Letter from the Producer XIV Yoshi dedicated a section of it to discuss ranking up. I will quote parts of it.

Ever since I posted on the forums, we’ve been receiving feedback from players worrying about whether or not we’re going to be nerfing the ranking up process. The simple and emphatic answer to this, just as I posted in the forums, is no.

Well Yoshi it was nerfed in every single way. Killing mobs gives less SP, Behest gives less SP and it can't be done back to back, guildleves give far less SP per kill and the final bonus is pathetic. What the heck is the use of Guardians Favor? I was getting 83 SP per kill and it increased to maybe 89 SP with favor and the final bonus was unaffected. I tried for a while with a party and the best we were getting was 340 SP with mobs 10 ranks higher than us, the problem was that every 3 kills our CON needed an MP break because of the outrageous MP cost increases.

I don’t want there to be a huge loss of skill points imposed for dying, or for players to have to grind 5–6 hours a day for 8 months to get to the high ranks.

Well, Yoshi, with the current state of SP gains it may not be for 8 months but it will certainly take 6+ hours a day of mindless grinding to make progress a decent pace now from 30s onward.

I do think ranking up should take longer in MMOs than in non-MMOs, but I plan to make the process both possible and enjoyable for players willing to invest the time, even if they’re solo, and even by doing quests and guildleves.

Are you serious? You just nerfed SP gains which you said you wouldn't do, we are now forced to grind to make decent progress for hours which you also said you wouldn't do and I already discussed leves' pathetic excuse of SP. As for quests they would have been viable if there were more than 5 and it would be more enjoyable if a quest in Gridania didn't sent me to Coerthas and back for a grand total of 1,700 Skill Points. I could get much more grinding in the same amount of time it takes to make that walk.

Why was this done? Are you really thinking that slowing ranking up to a crawl will retain population? Because this sort of thing is exactly what made everyone quit. Considering the state the game was slowly recovering from I would think this was the last thing they would consider doing.