It's a lot better now, but it's still fairly niche as an MMORPG because of the questionable mechanics and patience required. A lot has changed since its launch, some of the more notable things include the implementation of grand companies which mainly provide more unique quests and opportunities, such as the ability to ride a Chocobo, kill Ifrit, obtain unique gear etc. More end-game content has been added also such as the aforementioned Ifrit raid as well as some others. The drop rates are pretty bad but the items more than make up for it, they'll be gone after the release of 2.0 too so there's plenty of incentive to play if you're sentimental. Combat has been changed and is more dynamic now, skills can be chained and have unique positioning requirements for bonus effects, such as a slowing debuff if executed from behind. There are also advanced jobs now which are pretty interesting and give awesome looking gear. Levequests have changed too, you now get 8 every 12 hours and they can be stacked to 99, it used to be 8 every 48 hours (I think) and they didn't stack at all, so levelling is much easier and you can get a decent amount of money from doing so.
There's other stuff as well but I can't think of it off the top of my head, my subscription ran out about a month ago. In its current state FFXIV is pretty good, the main thing I love is how long it takes to level and how the game concerns itself with the journey and progression of the player and not some end-game goal. 2.0 is looking to change a lot of things when its likely implemented later this year, I'd definitely check back then if you're not liking what it's like now. I bought FFXIV off Amazon for like £5 with a free month and it's held my attention much longer than I anticipated.
