My two cents:

1.18 is good. It make solo'ing difficult to do and requires strategic planning for some battles (yay! no more "hack and slash" players). This change makes the game feel more mature and increases the "social" aspect of the game. Also, this new repair system and company "money" was a nice way to temporarily fix the ecomony (you should give the USA some suggestions)

I will say that I think caster's were kind of shafted. I don't know if that is because they were TOO good before 1.18 or if they are really disadvantaged right now (drawing hate for healing, really now?)

Suggestions:

Item search option in markets: It would be nice if you could also search for retainers that are looking to buy something (ie, I need 100 wind crystals. I request that from my retainer and give him cash. Players with 100 wind crystals see's that I am looking. Transaction occurs.)

Skill points for skill quests. They just give you gil and guild marks now.

Targetting system always seems to tab through mobs/allies randomly. It would be nice if it did it based on distance (ie Heated battle with a marmot. I desperately need a heal. Heal :hew::. ::Tab to nuke the beast:: Target is a beetle that looks like a dead pixel on my screen its so far away.)

A "Looking for party/I have a party" system. Spamming the shout box is irritating.

Finally, raids should be hard. The r45+ is hella hard and awesome. But, it would make me feel like I had a shot if there were some clues along the way. Instead of wiping 10 times before learning the blue circles make mobs disappear. Maybe the clues would be cool when you are a lower ranked character. Oh, and by all means make me work for these clues (they don't even have to be great clues, just give me something to make me feel like I have a shot).

Enough ranting... for now.