Souca,

I'm not going to quote, as I'm basically just replying to everything.

UI lag is a big issue. Things are all stored server side. S-E is about the exact opposite as Blizz when it comes to this. Blizz encourages custom UIs and things like that, and S-E hates all of it. UI lag needs to get fixed, though, for sure.

Storyline missions start at rank 1 (The start of the game). And then they pick up each time you receive a certain rank. The currently-known missions are rank 1, 10, 15, 20, 26. From Rank 20 on, as far as we can tell, all three town's storylines merge into a single story arch. So the first three sets of missions are unique to the town in which you start, and after that, the storyline is the same for everyone (Evil empire in the NE, your character has special abilities, etc... I won't reveal much plot spoilers)

And you're true. S-E does basically little hand-holding. While it's a lot of fun figuring stuff out, basic things should not be treated this way. The game didn't originally tell you how to return to your home point after dying, for instance. It does now, but a lot of little things like that will probably be tweaked in the future to make it more user friendly.

And no offense taken to the gear grind comment. Here's my rationale for it. It was 2004, the game was FFXI, and Ridere the White Mage really wanted a Noble's Tunic. It was the end all of awesomeness for WHM body gear. Cut to 2010, Noble's Tunic is still a viable piece of gear to wear. There's be tons of gear added since then, but it's all situational, or "sidegrades", not upgrades. So there's always something new to collect, but if you want to focus on other aspects of the game, you can still return and be functional.

Maybe it's not the best scenario, I dunno. All I know is that I loved having that one piece of gear that always made me feel cool, instead of collecting an awesome set of gear (Appearance wise, or otherwise) and knowing I'd have to replace it next big patch.

I'm probably the outside on this particular train of thought. But I know as soon as I got to the point where I could solo heroics in WoW, I started collecting all sorts of badges and neat gear... for a month. And then I had to grind the same dungeons for newer gear again.

FFXI definitely had grinds, just like WoW. In fact, it has way worse grinds (Relic Weapons, anyone). But they were optional grinds.

As for end game, there is none. Highest players in the game are probably mid 30's at best. The game has a fatigue system that actually limits how much skill points you can get per week to rank up. The rationale behind this was so that they could keep the EXP/SP curve relatively flat, while making it so people don't reach end game in a week. They want casual players to be able to keep up with hardcore ones more easily one a single class, while hardcore players will still be way better because they'll have more ranks on a variety of different classes.

The system is super controversial. At first I thought it was pretty damned retarted. But now that I'm actually playing the game, I think it works, as it does help you to focus on other things that can make your character better, as well as lets you go to bachelor parties, and be social IRL, without worrying about getting left behind, since you really only need to focus on that one class a week, and everything else is just gravy to make your char better.

Any other questions?