Yeah, you have those style of raids, but you also have besieged, campaign, ISNM, ANNM, BCNM, KSNM, Assualts, Salvage, Crafting, ToAU Gods, HNMS, and pankration is one of your fluff items left out :)

That's a huge variety compared to other mmos. List 3 other mmos with more variety of things that you can do?

Also, I have friends on ffxi who haven't even participated in endgame, and have played for 5 years. They don't just level other jobs, and some of them don't even craft. They do stuff like campaign, xp, FoV, Missions, help others do stuff, and just goof around alot. Some of them love camping low level nms (that would bore the crap out of me but some ppl like it). You have a choice in FFXI of how you want to play, and that option isn't available in most mmos.