Waaayyy too long to read the whole thing. Only thing I'll mention is LMFAO for you claiming that wow, aion, tera, everquest (EQ of all things!) are sandboxes. Do you even know what kinds of MMOs those typically apply to? Games like Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, EVE Online. Everquest, WoW, and those are themeparks.
FFXI is like the opposite of a hack-and-slash game. It's pretty much in the same category as EQ and WoW, but more unique.