I can agree that near the end of MMORPGs, leveling can get tedious.

Towards the final 10 levels in Everquest for the PS2, it was averaging me about a week to gain one level, and I played about 5-6 hours a day.

What I love about FFXI however, is that if you beat a tough monster, the exp you get shows it.

Let's take an example here: 4200 exp to the next level

Kill an incredibly tough, get 200 exp. Kill an even match, get 50 exp.
That's four times more exp.

Let's look at evequest now. 250,000,000 exp to the next level.

Kill an incredibly tough, get 280,000 exp. Kill an even match, get 242,000 exp. I don't think that's very rewarding at all.

For that reason alone, I feel that Final Fantasy XI is a bit less tedious than other MMORPGs, but it still is tedious. Another thing is I hear the game lacks high end raid content. More often than not, motivation for reaching the last level is to go raiding and lay a beat down on all sorts of uber mobs. Someone might be able to correct me on this, but I hear FFXI doesn't have much of that yet.