Stop Raising Item Level and build foundation with Horizontal Progression first

[Magis]

Having 2 million players for 9 months (FXIV) versus having 500,000+ players for 10 years (FXI).

Not too sure which one you would call more successful than the other, so you might want to tap the breaks a little bit with that assessment.

One being released in the early 2000s when MMOs weren't exactly "mainstream" let alone most people were still on dial-up and the other after WoW bringing MMOs into mainstream? The fact XI could retain it's population for a decade on it's "archaic system" as some say, with WoW being beside it, and it's graphics staying the same since 2002... I'd say it did pretty damn well.