I'm all about "Prestige" levels when gaining XP at 60. Maybe even more if they can give some small rewards.
About the 2 first points in your post the only thing i can say: Welcome to MMO-world where Vertical prograssion is the rule, and at every patch you'll restart from the begining, no matter what you accomplished in patch-1.
More specificly about your 1st problem, i think new AF for Jobs are pretty amazing, and Alexander gears looks cool, but this is a personal opinion, we can't realy debate on this.

But again, the "Merit"/"Prestige"/"Parangon" levels at 60 should be a thing, i adds a sense of progression for 60 characters.