I agree. And I have skimmed through the thread and seen more or less all the opinions, and I have to say that everyone is right, and I will try to point out all the things that are right in this thread:
  • Square took a huge risk with 1.0 stepping so much from the standard, but they paid for it and it failed not because it had the wrong concepts, but because it was all horribly horribly executed and well... nothing worked as they intended, and if it worked as they intended even worse.
  • The game was rushed and not really polished, and most of us were left wondering what where they thinking when they ended the beta and announced the game would ship in that state.
  • After the fail Square has changed the direction of the game and trying to make it more appealing to, well, everyone. With this they are walking a dangerous road, because us, the ones that are currently playing the game will dislike it if doesn't offer something unique, as that was the main reason we came to play it at first, but if it's too different from what the rest of the market is offering it will seem like the same recycled recipe every other mmo is doing and nobody will get interested in the game. So Square needs to innovate, not taking huge risks but innovating and offering a different experience.
  • Square SHOULD step up and make all content matter, make the game start at lvl 1, and pace the leveling accordingly. Some ideas like LvL sync would work wonders with this.
  • Grinding and having long term goals in mmos are not synonyms, so Square should aim for that. Knowing it will take 10+ months to achieve something would make people stick with the game if the process of achieving it is enjoyable.
  • The focus on the game should be character development, not leveling, not endgame, but a combination of those. Especially in a game where you can level everything with a single character. There should be plenty of content to complete at any level that can progress your character without mattering what level you are, and then some content focused on high level combat, gathering and crafting players.
  • The focus on group/solo player should be as diverse as the content of the game, there are people who love playing single player games with a chat, some people don't even want to play it it's not with friends. I think the game already has a great base for that, so let's see how they expand on it, but then again, this is inherently tied with how is the content and leveling paced, and how is the character progression designed.
  • And finally and more important, no matter what Square does, someone will be disappointed and get pissed at them.

At least this is what I got from reading the thread, and of course the info has gone through the filter of my own judgment so... is Yoshi heading the game and making it unique but appealing enough? I have that fear, but also there is a lot we don't know yet so... the only thing we can do is wait and speculate.