While 1.X definitely had problems and made mistakes, it most certainly did very good cutscenes for a MMO.

I would love for the game to bring back that level of cinematic storytelling to the game but I get the feeling that the team's budget and resources for doing cinematics is shoestring at best and so they do what they can with what little the have.

I also get the feeling that SE corporate is being very cautious and tight-pursed when it comes to FF14 and budget allocation since 1.0 was seen as a financial failure for them and so they are trepedatious with the funds that go towards the current version. While this is understandable to a point, hopefully they will loosen the purse-strings a bit and start to give more resources to Yoshi-P and team to improve and grow that game now that it has proven to be successful and profitable.

Also, another random note. I feel the lighting was a bit better in 1.X. Not sure what changed, but it just seems like it had more "pop" and depth to it back then.