So, this issue with the Aether Datacenter sure has highlighted one glaring issue with the FFXIV client - upon failing to connect to the lobby server, the client SHUTS DOWN and dumps you to the desktop.

Any other MMO's client would not do this. No other MMO forces you to open the log-in, type your password in, type your one time password in, start the client again, sit through the intros, just so you can hit connect and have to start ALL OVER AGAIN and go back to the log-in.

SE needs to fix this. The client needs to stay open and allow you to re-try connecting from inside the client. There is zero justification for shutting the client down and forcing us to log in again.

Any time there's an issue with the lobby server, any time you get a connection error - regardless of error number - this happens. It needs to stop.