Competition was the best part of FFXI endgame, in my opinion. If they remove competition, I'll have very little motivation to play. I'd take Dragon's Aery over instanced content any day of the week. I want to compete against other linkshells for claims/loot/etc. Even though many found DH challenging initially, pretty much everyone is running around with the same gear now. Even farming 5 chests in DH is becoming easy. Competition always kept me coming back in XI. Instanced content won't hold my attention for nearly as long.

Of course, that's just my view. I'm sure some hold the opposite view. I just think they should strike a balance between open world NMs and instanced NMs. It seems they are trying too hard to cater to casual players, perhaps at the expense of, for lack of a better term, 'hardcore' players.