I can only speak from personal experience, but I know I quit FFXI because of Abyssea. It had NOTHING to do with my "uber gear" being obsolete. I welcomed the shake up, because frankly their was very little for me to reach for other than minor side-grades with most of my jobs.

I quit because they bottle-necked a bloated end game community into the relatively small content that is Abyssea. Frankly I didn't find Abyssea to be any more fun in terms of leveling. It was still the same old grind fest, It was just faster than before.

But what about when you hit the new cap? There was very little to do other than the NM's that were...surprise, inside Abyssea. The other option? Magian trials, which were nothing but enormous mob grinds drawn out over what would take most players several weeks minimum to accomplish.

At the very least XIV offers different things to do in order to gain ranks. The differences may be minor, but the reality of FFXI when I quit was if you don't grind, you don't level, period.