A lot of the response time issues seem to be network issues. Not necessarily a connection problem on your end, but the location of the server itself. Considering that we are playing with JP players and this is a JP company with a JP dev team, you can't expect the servers to reside in the US. If there were US servers, I'm pretty sure the response time would be pretty quick.

I recall watching a Japanese FFXI recording on YouTube a while back and noticing how every single command was practically instant compared to the delay we get in the US. I've noticed the problems you've mentioned for quite a while and this is the best explanation I can come up with. If I'm wrong, I would like to know if there are any specific US servers and where they would be located. Either way, there is nothing you can do about this sort of thing when you try to have a game that envelopes the entire world as a community, someone is going to get shafted by ping no matter what.