Ya, look how every other mmo is turning out. BAD.

I played ffxi for 9 years and hardly did any end game.
If you touched Besiged, you touched endgame.

If you did any of the Avatar fights, you touched endgame, believe it or not.

Any Assaults at all, you touched endgame.

FFXI was riddled with endgame that was hidden under the guise of something else. But more importantly, FFXI had a badly designed endgame. I played FFXI as long as you do, and I too 'hardly touched endgame' but guess what? We were a vast minority, and a lot of the content we did enjoy repeatedly, was very endgame orientated. Beseiged and Campaign were active variants of Dynamis without sleep control. Storyline Boss fights were very similar in comparison to their endgame and __NM counterparts.

But the majority of the players in the game? Sustained by endgame. The markets the fields the playing. You stuck around because you enjoyed the timesink element, which was an element the majority was complaining about continually (and if you pay attention, they still are complaining about it.)

You cant use FFXI as a template for a sucessful MMO anymore, even that template had to change with time, and all these MMO's that you say are failing, they failed because most of them lacked the substantial endgame experience the players were looking for. Most the endgame players have experienced in MMOs these days has been little more than grind an fluff. Even our Ifrit and Garuda fights have been far more entertaining and challenging than some of these high end encounters other MMOs have been pushing through.

That's not to say neglect other content, Roiken, you mistake me. The concept is that Endgame becomes the sustaining element in the game for those who've already leveled. Things like Campaign, Besieged, all those lovely little distractions, they're actually a part of 'end game'. They are a part of the things you do after the leveling is over. If anything, FFXIV can use more of that system.

It doesn't have to be hardcore, but it dose have to exist, and substantially.