So I've been watching ffxiv.exe outbound connections the last few days. I've come to realize that there is only 1 lobby server. Which happens to be located in Japan. This is think is part of some (not all, just part) of the login troubles.

I believe it would be better for SE to put in at least 3 lobby servers. 1 Oceanic, 1 NA, 1 EU. While the servers would act and function the same. I think this could help clean up the simultaneous connection problems which result in 2002 and 1017 errors before you even press the start button.

Hopefully they have realized this and is part of tomorrows datacenter upgrade.