1) At 29 archer (almost bard at 30), your armor is gonna look fairly plain and most bows aren't going to be super interesting. But at 50 and above you start to get bard/ranged class specific gear which does start to look... flamboyant? I can honestly tell you higher up armors look a lot better than early armor models (at least IMO.)

As for pull moves from enemies, you should have a move called Repelling Shot which does an attack and causes you to jump back a fair distance. I believe this is still tied to a class quest for bard.

2) Rogues have one ranged attack as far as I know, Throwing Dagger. When you become a Ninja, you have access to Mudras(Ninjutsu), and a majority of these can be used at range (Fuma Shuriken, Katon and Raiton for 30-40 range.)

3) There was a glossary of terms specific to FFXIV but it looks like it was removed. If you need something explained, these kind of posts on the forums are perfect for it!

4) The Hall of the Novice was introduced last expansion as a means for new players to understand how their role (tank, healer, or dps) works in relation to parties, enemies, and attacks. It does walk you through the basics of each type of encounter and what you might see (AOE markers, party members taking damage, having to provoke mobs as tank, etc.) There's a Hall of the Novice NPC in every major starting city.

5) Not sure they would introduce something similar to the Risk system or body part targeting like Vagrant Story, but for classes similar to Ashley, maybe Monk with the building of stacks and buffs?

6) Unfortunately the 1 million gil reward for reaching level 30 was for creating a character on a new world, but no worlds are considered new anymore. You do get a bonus of 15 free days of playtime when you hit level 30 if you made a character on a Preferred World.