Hopefully the bump 75 era gets from Ninja's viewers today helps.

Offline - Technically you can run your own private FFXI server on your local computer, giving you some sort of offline access. Never tried it myself but if I understand correctly it only gives you a base experience, yeah you can connect, roam around, kill a few mobs, but not a lot of content (otherwise Nas wouldn't have had to spend so much time coding it) - and even if it does work and magically have all the content you have in Nas - You end up all by yourself and by the time you reach level 13 or 15 (or if you really insist 20) and it's no longer practical to solo you're gonna have a problem (unless you use GM commands to bypass the intended way of progressing).
Mobile - Couldn't agree more. I actually had a discussion about that on my LS. RMT is practically making the game pay to win (to some extent) and there are people who are willing to spend their money (and risk their account being deleted). Mobile "microtransactions" are basically just official RMT. Could even be worse if company sells things that "regular" RMT doesn't, like exp or exclusive items for real money.
Retail - You're probably right. They don't really develop the game anymore and I guess the current number of retail players is enough to pay the bills. I said that I doubt that they'll set-up a legacy server because that would require them to actually put some devs on that but as far as just keeping servers up, they'll probably keep them running as long as it covers the costs. I think we should put it this way - if it reaches the point where there aren't enough players to keep even one server running then you'd probably have no one to party with even before they shut it down.

Devs would only be needed up to release of the server. After that the costs goes way down. Then it's just $.$ $.$ $.$ $.$ $.$

Supposedly (did not witness this myself, but people are saying it happened) on his stream, Ninja said he has a contact within SE on the NA team and is trying to get them to discuss an official level 75 cap server.

If that's the case then it may also be the case that he's using the stream as means of putting pressure on S-E by showing popularity.

For me..the EARLY early days are the worst LOL, then after you reach a certain point it's the best, and then slowly goes down from there. Redoing things like the subjob quest, early gil farming, unlocking teleports, going everywhere for the first time and the basic quests like chocobo are such a pain in the ass... after you settle in a bit it gets a lot better in my opinion.

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In-game name: Mello

I like it all.
I like starting in rags and being poor.
I like slowly progressing, making gil, and learning to play efficiently.
I like how by mid-game I've met a lot of people and have made a lot of friends.
I like how there are a lot of end-game activities to be involved in.

You mean at a new server right? If it's an alt on the same server you can just pl it with your main.
Guess you're right about that, though I do think that if they set a classic retail server then basically everyone starts from scratch, so you have many others with you. Could be fun. Have to admit that I've never been on a newly set-up server though so I can't be certain.

It's pretty damn awesome to have a ton of people ready for the launch of a new server. Seen it many times in MMOs. It's a blast and makes you feel very nostalgic.

Petition passed 700, keeps makin strides somehow :O