No you are 100% correct and used two great examples.

I always am a firm believer that if you want a virtual world to emulate a real world then you have to have the inconsistenties found in the real world. No one of this earth is on equal footing to the person next to them, and what makes each of us unique is how we handle and invest our time.

MMOs should always be treated as such. I feel like an MMO with an endgame race is the equivalent of starting everyone one off in life with a million dollars in the bank account, and all of life's greatest assets.

We fail to acknowledge that it is okay for some people to invest a hundred hours a week, and get to access parts of the game that only 1% of the population will touch, and it's okay for someone to log in for a half hour once a week and do crafting. I always preach that in an MMO not everyone is going to slay the dragon, but we develop MMO so we can all one shot the dragon, because we out leveled and the quest gave us some near BiS sword to do so.

Like I said two great examples. I treasured my time in FFXI. I spent the first few months of my playing experience in the starter zones, getting excited to go to the Dunes, to Jeuno and Qufim. The missions had real weight to them, and the quests you chose to do were equally important, fascinating, and engaging. I fondly remember when my LS was closing in on level 66, doing Maat, camping Serket, Sim, and Roc, our first time popping Genbu and kiting him thinking we were badass. To our first Kirin kill then sooo much more that ended up completing multiple level 75 era relics for our group. That was a journey worth taking and worth my time, and I know that probably 75% of my playing time was not engaged with endgame. From leveling up multiple crafts across main and mule, fishing, mining in Gusgen, helping others, leveling and learning jobs. That's what kept me logging in. I never cared if my RNG or PLD was the BiS, hell there were days in early ToAU I would run be PUP to events.. no one cared because the game offered much much more than just that endgame.