Concept art is generally a lot prettier than what turns out in game. In fairness, I think the Ul'dah marketplace nearly captures its concept art essence - what that needed was liveliness from NPCs and players to complete that picture.

FFXIV 2.0 is going to have to be incredibly stellar in order to get people back into the game, so they really need to focus on quality environments, quality gameplay, and continuously providing frequent and quality filled patches. IGN today posted an article that says people should avoid playing FFXIV, so there's still a ton of animosity out there towards the game; even from us here on the forums.