So, help me out folks. What kind of fun shit are people doing? Are people xping like FFXI with leves?
If you want to solo, leves are probably the best way. Partying up for leves is a good way to exp. as a group, too, if you can't get a full 8-man grind party.
Grind parties generally start in the 30-35 range, and you'll level up quickly with them, but a lot of people seem to end up at 50 with no money, etc. if they over-rely on this.
Are there dungeons? Avatars? Fun stuff like that?
There are three dungeons. Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak is for L25 or thereabouts, and Dzemzael Darkhold, The Aurum Vale and Cutter's Cry are for L50.
They're all 1 hour runs, but if you know what you're doing, you can get through them faster. You're guaranteed to get some items at the end, provided you fulfill a number of conditions throughout the rest of the dungeon. Naturally, the really good gear has a pretty low drop rate.
Are you do all three storylines (I think there are three)?
The "three storylines" thing was for 2.0. Right now, there are two storylines: the "Main Scenario" and the Grand Company storyline.
The Main Scenario mostly sucks, because they designed it to be completable as a non-battle class. The story stuff is pretty interesting, but it doesn't go as far as you want it to, because they basically stopped devoting resources to the Main Scenario after it became clear the "non-battle class" stuff was a terrible mistake.
The Grand Company storyline is the "main" storyline right now, really, since it's about all of the pre-apocalyptic stuff that's going on now. It's pretty awesome, and all of those quests will disappear forever in 2.0 since, well, we'll be in the post-apocalyptic era then.
How is the expanded job system (Pugilists/Lancers turning into Monks and such)?
It's pretty good, but needs a bit of work, still. A lot of the Job-specific abilities are fun and essential, but some of them don't feel like enough of an upgrade over the classes. Personally, I feel the stat changes from class -> job need to be more extreme, too. Right now, everyone just uses Jobs for most everything.
The quests to get the Job abilities and AF are pretty good, on the whole, and Relic weapons are for Jobs, as well.
How about crafting? Is it a bit easier now? Worth doing? Pointless?
Crafting is pretty awesome, I think - this is the only game I've liked it in, and I spend an awful lot of time doing it. It's great to be able to repair your own stuff, and materia melding is also really important.
It's much more accessible than in other games, I think, because you can earn a living leveling off of leves - they give you mats for the synths, and exp., gil and extra mats as the reward. It's slower than if you buy the mats yourself, but I think that's a good balance. You also get a lot of bonus exp. for quality, too, so you can level for speed or max exp. per synth.
It has a bit of randomness in it, of course, but you have enough control and decision opportunities to make it feel like you're not completely at the mercy of RNG. All the classes have abilities that guarantee success of different types of synthesis, give quality bonuses, restore durability, etc. to let you get more of what you want.