1. http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ersal_summary/, you can see 2.38 is housing. However, next week on the 28th 2.4 will come out. Ninja, new dungeons, main storyline, new tomestone (gears), recipes, coil, Shiva primal.

2. All MMORPGs mate, every single one of them :P. Some can hide it better than others, but players play too fast to make unique content for every moment of the game. Although talking about levels in particular, leveling is not that hard so long as you aren't expecting it to happen over night in 1 hour. I've casually and very easily leveled stuff up just completing the challenge log and doing the daily roulettes.