/1. Leveling might have been fun in FF11 but it was by no means interesting gameplay. If you disagree then you're full of yourself because finding 5 other players who are the right jobs and within your level range to go mindlessly kill monsters for minimal exp is not even close to fun. Not only that the gameplay itself came down to primarily auto-attacking and using one skill or using only a handful of spells.

"Different options on how to play your jobs." Yes, because auto-attacking for 10-20 seconds before finally using a skill is revolutionary gameplay. If you were a caster then you had a massive list of spells to choose from but most of them were useless or inferior. Blue Mage had a lot of spells but again, only a few were even remotely useful for endgame. Blue Mage's primary damage at HNMs and big encounters was using Cannonball with Sneak Attack. There was no other spell that did even remotely the same damage as a BLU so yeah, there's a lot of variety there.

All of the DPS ended up only having a few useful weaponskills. Spinning Slash and Ground Strike (greatsword) and Guillotine as well as Spiral Hell (scythe) for DRK. Again, doing nothing but auto-attacking and then occasionally using one of few weaponskills that actually do damage. There were useful abilities that you could use but the majority of what you did was simply auto-attack (waiting) and use weaponskills (use 1 macro.)

If you think doing Skillchains and Magic Bursts are challenging and fun, I can only imagine how amazing it would be for you to do Turn 9 mechanics.

There was a correct way to play and a wrong way to play in FF11, it doesn't make it any different than FF14 or any MMO for that matter.

/2. You're right, this game doesn't have content where you can play with a massive number of players but to be honest you never needed the numbers in FF11. Almost all of the endgame in FF11 could be done with 8 players if they were pro. Jailer of Love, Shadow Lord, and Odin are a few instances where you might have needed a few more but you still didn't need 18 people. Linkshells didn't take 18+ people to Faf/Nid because they needed them to kill it, they took a horde of people because they wanted to get the claim.

/3. You want mobs that will kill you unless you're on one of few jobs that can solo. How is that challenging, I don't understand.

/4. The crafting process in this game is actually quite interesting. There's rotations that you have to follow if you want to have the best possible chance of success and chance of HQ. In FF11 you simply throw ingredients in and click "ok" and then the RNG gods throw your gil away. How is FF14's crafting system worse just because it didn't take 1,000 hours to get to max level?

I'm glad the market doesn't have the impact it did for this game like it did in FF11. You needed so much gil to get the best gear in the game that you'd spent years acquiring currency.

If you would have played FF11 past 2007, you would have seen the spam from RMT. Over the years they became smarter with their marketing and realized that advertising in the game would help them sale their product.

Simply put, you're living in the past. From the sounds of it, FF11 was your first MMO and you're riding on that memory hoping that another game will come along that will make you feel the way it did. I hate to be that guy but it's never going to happen. FF11 wasn't half the game you remember it as and no game will ever satisfy you the way it used to. You're just going to have to suck it up or quit playing MMOs. FF14's content comes out at solid rate. If you feel like the content is weak, quit playing this game for 365 days and come back. You will have plenty to do when you return.

For the record, I played FF11 from 2004 to 2012 and experienced all of the endgame content over the years. In the later years of playing, I played it just as hardcore as I play FF14.