An example of what I believe would be your standard player:

I quit playing awhile back and I really enjoyed the game for the most part. The area’s that annoyed me the most was the leveling. It seemed like SE just wanted to hold us back so much that leveling past 25 was just a wall.

I have read a lot about the changes that are coming and I am getting excited about the class changes and combat changes. I do want to get back to playing, but I want to know how the game currently is as regards to leveling.

Can you level at a reasonable speed? Can you group/solo effectively? Those things were just so annoying to me when I playing awhile back. I couldn’t play with friends, because the SP was just so low for some vs others. Then they changed it and it was just a grind fest of low level mobs.

So how is it?
This is a post from here: http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/30649-leveling-up/. I think this would be common among lots of players, I know I feel the same and this hasn't changed very much since the release of the game. Leveling is still quite poor and the responses to give credit to this point..