I actually played the game alone and still enjoyed it.
It's definately not for patient people; right around the middle of the game when you gain access to the third area, there feels like there is no progression whatsoever and you can easily get discouraged.
I stopped, but picked it back up again after about a year of collecting dust when I figured out about crossing the river and eventually kept progressing until I got to the final area and stopped.
I played as a Clavat, which was probably the most versatile of all of the races, so combat did vary up a bit.
And yes, it was made very apparent to me how I was pretty disadvantaged in being a single-player, especially having no reward for finding hidden moogle stamps.
I don't know, I guess I liked going through the years and slowly building up stats through artifacts and gradually upgrading my personal wares. I thought that the "plot" itself was pretty interesting, especially with road encounters (although I still haven't gained any insight into the backsight of the Black Knight and Herdy)
Maybe I thought it was enjoyable because I really liked FF9 and kept finding similiarities?
I don't know, I just did.
Unfortunately however, since I've poured so much time into single-player, I figure that if I were to start all over and find a group of players to accompany me, I don't think that it would be the same experiance as starting fresh with a band of people.