I agree with Lionx, your big problem was that you had characters on, what, five different servers? No wonder you spent so much time leveling if you're trying to keep up with that many characters.

If you stick with one character and a mule (if you need it) you can get further in the game much faster and actually get things done.

There's so much to do in the game, but if you ask me, it sounds like you've spent all your time trying to level so that you had no spare time to do anything else. DJ Zen already suggested many different options which you seem to have neglected.

And I strongly disagree with you as far as the lack of story progression goes. You don't need to be level 50 to progress very far in the plot. I was rank 5 at L30.

In the end, it's your choice. FFXI is more involved than most other MMORPGs and is one of the few that I've looked into that was actually able to maintain a plot with enough depth to make it interesting.