I just logged in for a couple hours tonight for the first time since about April and it was night and day compared to what I remembered. I am not going to claim that this patch was perfect (because the amount of rage on the forums speaks for itself) but for a casual player I have noticed a massive difference.

Couple things that really struck me.
1. The world is starting to feel alive for the first time for me, quest npcs, cutscenes, grand companies, outposts, beastmen (the new music in the black shroud!!!)
2. The new leve quests may not be abuseable for parties anymore but they actually felt fun on my Thm I didnt feel like I was either going to blow them away or get instantly murdered 20+ times while doing them.
3. The new battle system feels.. right to me, if a little clunky. I always felt the stamina gauge was a pretty terrible system this AA is perhaps a little slow but it does seem to strike the balance between being too busy and having not enough to do as a mid level THM.

I now feel for the first time since beta that this game will not only make it alive to the PS3 but that when it does people will be forced to take note, I love the direction this is taking great job dev team and to everyone that is frustrated I would just say take a little step back and look at where we were, where we are, and where we are going because it looks to be an exciting place.

I could go on all night about the little things that have changed (repair costs/mats anyone?) but I will leave it at that I just felt the urge to let the dev team know there are some of us that will be playing on a regular basis from now on because of the work you've done in the last couple months.