I dunno, I liked FFXI and it will always have a place in my little heart. I suppose I had a different experience with the game being that I never made it to cap with any job at all, never got to finish any of the expansions, never even did Dynamis once (spent most of my time modding).

But yeah I can see what the OP is saying, they want to relive the golden era of CoP when there was still a fair balance of eletists and normal nice people. The game was just fun to be in, I dunno it was just a general feeling, even if you werent grinding everything out to be the best of the best.

That being said this is FFXIV, and no #'d Final Fantasies are too much alike nor should they be. Sure this game didnt have the best start, but maybe in the future it will have its time to shine like CoP did.
I dont think CoP itself was the catalyst for said good times, it had to have everything fall into place which was more than just development, it was also the people playing.

The storyline for this game is already shaping up to be really cool, and I am really excited to see where it goes post 2.0. There will be many new people then, many more kind people, and the game is already pretty fun to play right now so with all the upcoming improvements I can see this game doing well!

I for one love Goobbues (I dont think its because im half japanese but whos to say in that department) so I am very happy for their inclusion. The more Goobbues the merrier if you ask me. I dunno, something about big giant dumb things blissfully unaware they are special trolloping through fields gets me every time.

Long story short, wait it out (playing or not)