Just last night I was talking to Kio about the WoW zones being better because they have little towns and farms and things that act as quest hubs and somewhere other than the main cities to center your activities for the day around.
Put some NPC shops in these, and maybe a guild support NPC for one particlar guild, a chocobo NPC (eventually), and a repair NPC as well as a whole plethora of quests and scatter maybe 3-4 of them around each of the existing zones and you might improve things a whole lot.
Having to wait until mid-June for the next patch kind of sucks though. I understand it's a big patch, with this stuff, multiple raid dungeons, and the new battle system content, but the huge gap of nothing might ultimately be what drives people away.
EDIT:



(Look carefully at the Ul'dah one and you can see a Chocobo.)