Looking For Up To Date Info Beyond the Lodestone

[revial]

Haven't played the game since the first two to three months. Apparently a lot has changed. Been looking for a detailed post/blog/report/wiki/etc that details how the game has changed without any luck. Almost anything I search for on google ends up being outdated info. I'd ask a bunch of specific questions, except I'm not even sure what those questions should be. From logging in today, I do have a few to get started with, barring the existence of some great community repository I could sift through. Ended up logging off as it was all a bit overwhelming.

1) Job Change Macros: I noticed that switching weapons now seems to automatically switch your skills as well. Does this mean there's no point to including the placement of job-skills in your job change macro? Do you set the skills, and then the game remembers what you had set for a particular job and auto loads them when changing gear?

2) Confusion over sub-job skills: Since you apparently can't switch weapons in combat anymore, does this mean skills you slot from sub-jobs can only be used out of combat or does this mean sub-job skills no longer require you to wield that job-specific weapon?

3) Crafting changes: Anyone want to go into detail how crafting has changed since the initial couple months of release?

4) Dated Equipment: Should I be looking to replace all my 'dated' equipment as soon as possible?

5) Level and Equipment: The level of equipment seems to have huge penalties now if it is higher than your class level. Are there sites that allow you to compare level appropriate gear to gear that is higher level than you are? Or is it always essentially not worth using gear you haven't leveled up to yet? Just about every single piece of gear I am currently wearing is at least 10+ levels higher than I am, and seems to be virtually irrelevant.

6) Skills. When last I played, there were definitely some skills that were more...important...than others when trying to decide how to build your character and chart the way it went through various jobs. Presumably this is still true (please, if you're the type of person who really believes any combination of skills is equally valid, just skip this question). Any suggestions? You can see my character's job (and skill) progression via the signature. Edit: Hrm, apparently the forum asking me to select a character to use as a signature was misleading as I don't see it anywhere. My 'main' is a level 22 Pugilist, 22 Archer, 17 Lancer, 17 Thaum, 16, Conj.

7) Back to Macros. The main use of macros, for me, was to use sub-job skills. ie: Switching weapon, switching skills, use a skill, switching weapon back, switching skills back, in one button. If, and this is a big if, you no longer need to switch weapons to use sub-job skills, what's the main purpose of macros today? Pretty much every macro guide I've found on google seems incredibly out of date.

8) Servers. I have two characters I can reactivate on Durandal. I notice it's one of the servers we aren't allowed to create new characters on. Would Durandal be considered a healthy server? I ask, because I am toying with the idea of simply starting all over again, and thus learning how to play the game again orgainically from the beginning, but that would force me to create a character on another server. Of the available servers, I popped onto them all and all seemed extremely 'dead' compared to the amount of people I saw on Durandal (I saw maybe three people in the ~30 minutes of running around with a new character in Gridania on the four available servers that had full chocobos on the server list).

9) If I do stick with this mid-level 'main' character as seen in my sig, keeping in mind that I have not played it since the first two-three months of the game, what would be your suggestions of the first few things I should be doing? In my head, it would seem to be to re-learn crafting as all her gear is worthless, then pick up any available quests while getting ready to join a Grand Company. Obviously joining a Link Shell, though I would prefer to be far more comfortable with the game than I am currently before I threw myself into a position where other players would have to rely on me. ;p

10) What, exactly, is the additional content that has been added? If memory serves correctly, what I used to do was login, do my 8 levequests-if I was able to, since it took three days to refresh-and then go grind on a couple hundred mobs, broken up by trying to keep myself amused via televisions while eeking out a crafting level or two.

I feel like there must be someone out there that has attempted to consolidate all the info pertaining to how the game has changed over time, but I can't find it. Ideally, I'd love it if someone was to simply point me in the right direction. I don't count the lodestone, as while it has some info, it's severely lacking on anything that might be considered 'opinion'.

I am NOT looking for some basic guide on what the jobs are, or what the races are, or anything else full of fluff like that.

If you've read through all this and are about to answer, thanks for your time!