75 era of ffxi was probably the worst. Dunno what kind crack people smoking saying it was the best. I played through all the eras of ffxi and still play it and 75 was no where near the best era of ffxi. It started to improve after the 75 era and got better.

One thing that I would say ffxi still has and probably will have over every mmo is the gear system. You actually had gearsets for different things. Not just get highest ilv and your set. Gear actually has value in ffxi cause each piece has its own use. Gear also has its own unique stats to buff different abilities, spells, ws's, etc.

FFxiv's main selling point is the theme park and glamour. It takes a lot less time to do things in it so lot more people are drawn to it. Which in this day and age is great. Could it use improvements? Yes. All games could always use improvements. Overall it has gotten much better over time.

1.0 also was nothing like ffxi. It failed for a whole lot of reasons and being like ffxi wasn't one of them. They basically took what they learned from mmos the first time around and didn't use it and used the worst things they could in 1.0.

I'm glad they were smart and made ffxiv what it is now from what 1.0 was. It could use a bit more of a job spread that is true to the ff brand. Brd being mixed with Rng was crappy. They should of been two separate jobs.