I started with ver 1.0 alpha 1. I think the excitement to be part of the early testing process kind of pulled the wool over my eyes in the early stages. Long queues to log in, server crashes, very laggy gameplay. It was alpha, these things are to be expected.
In the early days almost all skills were AOE based. I figured SE wanted us to fight multiple mobs at a time, but I found it strange that you were allowed only 1 single enemy claim at a time (in group or solo) if you fought off multiple monsters you only were rewarded EXP and Skill Points based on the % of HP the monster had when it became claimed. I reported it as a bug. Of course no feedback was ever acknowleged, or commented on. This "bug" was present in beta and eventually to live. I figured then it was a design choice, but why make all these AOE skills and then turn around and punish players for taking on multiple mobs? Back in Alpha this was my first inkling that there were some problems with the development, it seemed disjointed.
Through the multiple alpha versions and beta versions, we were allowed only access to Limsa and surrounding areas. Leve quests were given 8 allowances every 48 RL hours. It was very easy to run out of content in just a short session ~3-60 min. This sparked heated threads on the alpha forum. I was in the camp that SE was only testing the systems, that they didn't need to unveil the whole world to us. If the code worked in Limsa, the code will work in other parts of the game as well.
When Open Beta rolled around and allowed us access to the whole world, there was nothing extra to experience. This continued into launch. Despite the huge dissapointment, I was a fan and felt SE would patch in great content to experience in the first few months.

Thats when things really became aparent that there was something wrong with FFXIV. They extended the free month into a 2nd free month while they fixed some issues. Complaints ranged from people receiving varying amounts of SP/EXP for kills, to getting not at all. Lack of content to experience. To slow story progression. Tanaka made some statements on the lodestone saying huge changes were coming. Then the bomb dropped The whole dev team was to be restructured. SE continued the "free trial" and Yoshi P took over.

Things changed slowly over the next few months. I stopped playing around Feb of 2011. Although I followed XIV on the lodestone and the forums I didn't pick it back up again until July of 2011 when patch 1.18 hit. I consider 1.18 the turning point for FFXIV. That was the start of battle reforms like auto attack and the introduction of instanced dungeons.

After patch 1.18 came more and more patches that streamlined the gameplay. Levequest stock, self skill combos, more and more content. Then SE dropped the 2nd bomb: FFXIV ver 2.0 This really fulled the excitement for me, I didn't think it was going to take 2 years to make it a reality, but I really kept my hopes up for this game.

Now that the eve of ARR is upon us I'm really looking forward to see how SE has reinvisoned this game. I do sincerely hope SE considers the feedback provided to them over the next few months. Judging by the way Yoshi and team have had much better comunication with us than the previuos team, I have faith that they will get this right.