Lol Ouch, we lost our characters and were not able to transfer them. We actually kept in touch via a central forum/IRC Channel. Everyone in the LS i was in (which was one of the bigger known ones) and a couple of other big ones voted on Midgard...then we started a World Pass Tree from one character, where it extended to everyone else that we knew. Think we started a fund to get Passes as well with donations. We cannot choose our servers, just randomly create/delete til we hit Midgard.

With the way FFXI is now, they probably will let you choose which one to go to. About guilds being established, probably within the first day for the dedicated gamer. If people can beat certain content in a day, like a Raid, then a guild is nothing.