Horizontal progression like FFXI had would have allowed for more content longevity. But they decided to do vertical progression. Playing this game you have to accept the fact that current content is difficult, old content can be steamrolled so you can see it, but that's not where the player base is. What's more, so many changes and balance adjustments have happened since that content, and there's even been the addition of several jobs. Because of that there is no way to go back in time to experience it like it was originally intended anyway.

Just do the current content while it's current. There are years of more content left for you to experience while it's current. And be glad you can steamroll the old stuff. We can't even see what the 1.0 content was (not that there was much to see).