Yeah my thoughts are very similar to Aul's and I'm almost certainly going to get on board FFXIV shortly after 2.0 is released because I've been hugely impressed with the beta/demo. The couple of things I took issue with are actually being addressed for Beta 4 as well, apparently, and the list of things Yoshida and his crew have already addressed is immensely long.

My own summation of ARR would be the solid, vast world-building, lore, and variety of FFXI mixed with the combat system of WoW, all polished up rather nicely.

It's been a hell of a long time since I was playing an MMO and I saw a building on the horizon that made me think "Wow, that looks cool, I'll have to explore that later!" instead of "Oh I guess there's loot and/or quests there"