FFXI slowly began introducing this concept too, if you think about it. Started since ToAU really..with all the awesome gear being rar/ex

Now almost everything in XI is rare/ex, but I feel they did not balance it properly for the crafters, so yeah...they took a bit of a hit. Otherwise though, I love love love the direction they went with that in XI. No more dealing with bullshit Fafnir camps, or fighting over who gets the sword worth 10mil.

As far as crafting the "inbetween gear" (lvl 1-endgame level), over time, XIV too will suffer from old content/gear, and this wouldn't be such a problem anyway. In 1.0, we had already seen the implementation of lower level gear (Hempen and some Cotton stuff) already available from NPCs in the wards.

The debate with the materia melds: If I recall, Yoshi did say it would be a bit more streamlined: ie, easier to make melds. Odds will be better, and by the looks of it, there will be an abundance of materia to go around.

To me it seems as if a lot of the reluctance to accept the idea of item binding comes from the old economy prices we are trying to peg on items. I agree this is territory that should be approached extremely carefully, but if you really think about it, it's not as bad as everyone makes it seem to be.