Personally I am in favor of grind parties being the main source of leveling in this game. As Meowy rightly said it requires alot more effort to put together and the subsequent reward should always reflect that. Greater time effort spent = greater reward. I enjoyed the leveling process in FFXI and I did not find it neither boring or repetitive. I found party play dynamic and fun in FFXI. Depending on the party setups the leveling experience could change alot from group to group. However, what makes it less than enjoyable in FFXIV presently is the lack of variety provided by the class system. No real defined classes and roles. Though 1.18 took great strides towards changing that.

I do believe that there should be more viable alternative methods to leveling, both for solo and party play. While FFXI offered other methods to gain small amounts of additonal EXP thats all they were, small amounts. Several hours in Campaign or a level 8 Besieged would not yeild more than 2k exp so I always felt that was not a great representation of the effort put in. So I would like to see in this game offer better rewards for events outside of "old school" grinds.