It seems like everything from 1-50 is set up to be meaningless and sort of an in-and-out to endgame. Not sure if I like that. It's kind of cool to have low level zones filled with people leveling and farming and looking to upgrade their characters just for that range because they'll be there a while - there's a certain persistence about it. I get the feeling that before very long at all there's not going to be much going on in that entire range. You'll get new players who come in to an empty level range, with maybe some people all leveling the same (new) class or something.
I think Yoshi-P and Tanaka are both on extreme ends of the spectrum when it comes to having a carefully crafted MMO and a game that is more immediate and accessible. I wish there was someone to balance Yoshi out a little bit at least. I'm not counting him out yet though, because at least he understands the complaints. Not sure if he thinks it just isn't as important or if he's got something up his sleeve.
I know that most people at launch time (or from open beta) will rush their way to cap, but after that there will be the people that takes it easier to level a second class, and will populate those low level areas during a longer period of time doing leves, FATEs, hunting logs, instead of going through the rush of dungeons.
Also I think you know how Yoshida wants people reaching level 50 quick. He is not having people stay around low levels, because although there is a good sizeable amount of content from 1-49, the core of the game will be at level 50, and I wouldn't even say core, since the current plan is to raise the cap within 6 months in the 2.2 update or soon after.
In FFXI Tanaka added the Sub-Job quest, Chocobo license, Kazham pass, Airship passes, limit break quests, etc. All these on top of an extremely grindy system that rewarded very low experience during their frist 3-4 years. So in FFXI you saw all these stop-gaps, and people took ages to finally get to that level 75. But in the end, what was there along the way? Yeah, they might have been some NMs and BCNMs, but the reality is that all were just looking for party in Jeuno for days and days, if you happened to be a melee DD.
Yoshida might be on the other end than Tanaka, but he certainly is in the better end, and ARR levelling process (even if it was just during a beta with a level 35 cap), was so much better than anything Tanaka did with 1.0 or with FFXI pre-ToAU.
Anyway, I somewhat think that your complains are somewhat out of place, since low level areas are destined to be empty unless the game level scalling to you (not level synch), but if you are level 40 and go outside town and see a squirrel, it won't be level 1, but level 40. but that'd be ridiculous and defeat the point of having higher level zones.
