A lot of the newer characters added to scenarios have a lot of character and depth to them. I am a personal fan of the whole DRG storyline quest itself. The characters had an interesting background story and interacted well with each other, not to mention you felt significant to the quest line.

Yes, I do feel like the old development team did not put a lot of character depth besides within the Circle of Knowing. I actually like those characters. The story itself is great, but the character's I feel lacked true personality. I do not feel antagonized by the Empire. I really felt antagonized and shocked by Kam'lanaut and Eald'narche in FFXI when I found out they were pulling the strings in the whole fiasco.

Even right now in the GC company quests, the new development team was able to put some life and character into Baelsar and Darnus. Darnus seems like a more aggressive, hot-headed character, believing Meteor will destroy the primals without consequence beyond that. Baelsar opposes the idea believing that Meteor can't be controlled. I like this because it so both have the same ideals, but opposing methods of making those ideals a reality, inevitably leading to conflict between the two. This makes me wonder how things will work out when we fight one of them, or both of them in 1.23.

But new team wise, it looks like they understand how characters were displayed before and putting more life into them, so I wouldn't worry about this. Final Fantasy always delivers on story, even when poor mechanics are made around it.