Hmm, well in my honest opinion...let's see.

Combat needs to be more fluid, I also don't feel a sense of accomplishment when I kill things. I mean back in FFXI (Which I will be basing a lot of my view upon, fillet me if you wish) when I killed my first goblin I was like, "Yeah, take that goblin. You just got beat down. Same with my first quadav, and yagudo. (not so much with orcs seeing as they tended to eat my face.)" This also brings me to a passionate point of mine. I feel no love for my class.

Perhaps this stems from my recent run-ins with FFIV and Dissidia but I miss the heck out of Dragoon. I just felt powerful when I wielded my lance, also, the battle system we have now kind of downplays the "Heavy Weapon" archetype that I always find so endearing. Yeah, you stood there for 10 seconds after swinging your scythe, that crap is heavy.

Second, I don't know if it's just me and my biases but the world seems not very enthralling. I mean, I stand in Gridania and I just feel nothing. I see the lancers and their masks and feel nothing. I watch the carpenters ply the crafts and nope, nothing. I even do my relevant quests and they make me smile a little but afterward, nothing. Honestly, I don't really know how they can infuse the world with the light I so desire. Perhaps, a cataclysm is truly the only way, one must become Ragnarok and tear the land asunder for a rebirth to occur...

Third, I don't care much for leves. They were interesting up to about rank 20. Subsequently, finding out quickly that there isn't a large amount of variety as one climbs the steps to 50...I sort of lost steam. How to fix them? I again, don't truly know.

Finally, a piece I feel is off topic but I truly find this an issue, one that I find time and time again... I believe that willingness to accept change is directly proportional to time invested in the current systems. Simply put, you let the crap rain down on you as you trudged through the fire and flame to get to 50 and are angry that people are attempting to seek genuine change of the systems that you MASTERED.

This places SE in a whale of a position, Yoshi-P has already stated that progess shall not be lost, but does that or does that not cripple the possible directions this game can take?

On one hand you have the loyal and the true, who have with unwavering resolved weathered what some would consider "intolerable" and are waving the flag of their success.
On the other hand, you have the masses, the hungering ones who through willful decisions or simple lack of effort are not attempting the systems these far outnumber the loyal and the true. You have decided not to snub the loyal but the masses are still standing at the window, seeing nothing to be gained by entering but seeing the loyal work tirelessly.

Can you entice the masses without crushing the loyal? This is the question.