i played this game about a month too now
and i agree with most of your point, especially the character customization, skill system and world design
world design is perfect and beautiful, but it shame that its too restricted full of ivisible wall and with all zone and instances, it make less immersive for me, but still i can handle it and not really a big deal for me
about a couple days ago when iam randomly searching web about ff14, i found an article about translated interview with ff14 producer, it stated that there is planning to overhaul the world with less invisible wall and make the world truly open world in future expansion
i don't know if it's true or not, but i do hope its true, it will greatly improve the atmosfer, make it more immersive (at least imo )