Commitment issues

[Kaedan]

Bunch of pointless and useless dates

The amount of time that passed between release and Zilart is irrelevant. Development cycle =/= Development time.

Heavensward is the first expansion for FFXIV and it raised the level cap to 60. At the exact same stage of development, FFXI wasn't even available in the US. And at the time of the first expansion for the Japanese only version of FFXI, the only endgame content was Dynamis and Sky.

The version of the game that non-Japanese regions finally got was a heavily updated Rise of the Zilart.

What RotZ did to FFXI is exactly what HW did to FFXIV... it trivialized the endgame of the original FFXI. Now HW has Alex Normal, Alex Savage, 3 end-game dungeons, 3 endgame trials and 2-3 options for current end-game gear. Actually FAR more than RotZ had at it's launch.

So no, the OP is quite wrong.

[Eekiki]

And at the time of the first expansion for the Japanese only version of FFXI, the only endgame content was Dynamis and Sky.

Dynamis and Sky were both added with RotZ. Pre-Zilart FFXI had a level cap of 50 and the Shadow Lord was the end of the main story. "Endgame" was only a few BCNM fights.

Which proves the OP wrong even more.