I don't really agree with Ouch. I think that the game is more accessible to newer players and has much more activity now than it had a couple of years ago. There's been a large influx of newer members in the last year, and there have been additions to make the leveling progress and early level activities much faster and enjoyable for both old and new members.

However, personally I would never make a new character at this stage. But, I've been playing this game for five years and for me right now is the beginnings of moving on, especially with the announcement and release of all the Final Fantasy XIV information. After so many years of revisiting content in the game, I just can't bring myself to help newer players through it, as much as I'd really like to see them progress. I've also found, while the new additions have made the game more casual, I still just don't have so many hours to do end-game activities as I used to, and some of them are starting to become mundane. But I still find fun stuff to do in the game.

The game is still great. It's incredible in fact; and while I have my most fondest memories and best times back in the day, I still find a lot of fun stuff to do now (having with with Campaign right now). I think the main reason I view it such a way now is purely based on how much time I've put into it.

Also be aware that Final Fantasy XI will in no way resemble or give you a feel of what is to come in the next installment. The game came out in a totally different time and space that current MMO's are at now - so look towards newer MMO's being released (such as Aion) for better reference, as Final Fantasy XI is from the old-style MMO era (e.g. Everquest, Ultima Online, etc.) - it's just such an out dated game design, purely based for the hardcore and still has quite a time sink no matter how many updates they release to try and make it more casual.

However, Square-Enix being Square-Enix, they will try something new and try to reshape how we percieve MMO's generally. At least that's the impression I get with the current information we have about Final Fantasy XIV - I can garantee we won't see this game released until at the very least this time next year. Perhaps even later towards Christmas next year.

To the OP; if you only had a low level character, then I don't really see the point of reactivating it. Go make a new character with your prefered race and start out classes, on a server that you might like (though they don't differ at all, except for friends you may have on one).

If you are on Midgardsormr, you are more than welcome to join my shell, but unfortunately it's not that friendly to newer players in that it'll be quite a battle to get help for low level stuff. This is mainly because the lowest member we have is already around level 50. It's also harder for me to be around due to my time zone and work load. However, it's always a place to hang out! We've done some cool stuff; like battle through the whole of Chains of Promethia expansion.

Anyway, just some food for thought!