The boring mechanics were the reasons why I never stayed on any game for very long. From my experience, FF14 has many advantages on that side:
First of all, you can play all classes with one character. You don't need to replay the story quest to play another class or crafters. Every class is played very differently and you have to follow strategies in dungeons and on boss fights. It's never just one button.
Yes, the story is very good and it actually feels like you matter. I hated that feel of having no importance to the story because I just run by some important people who do important things but it has nothing to do with me (aion and bdo so far, didn't play too many). The first expansions story was even better and made me cry at one point. Sidequests and Levequests for leveling can get boring, yes, but to level fighting classes there are many ways to do that, so I think it's quite alright.
There are also some really funny quests that made me laugh tears. Tricking the moogles to stop them from slacking, helping Mr Manderville ... some questlines are so well made, it's like being part in a comic yourself.
The grinding parts I left out tbh XD the endgame content ofc has some repeating stuff as you spam the same dungeons, but then again there are many, many duties you can do and there is so much content, I'm still overwhelmed with it. I have no idea how it is with other games, but I think for a mmo, it's doing pretty good.
Main part I liked though was, that it is really, really fun to play with people. I was lucky to find some ppl I even stayed friends with outside the game which is really nice. The community is friendly in general except some few idiots.
Also: GRAPHICS o h m y g o d it's so beautiful and there are so many incredible outfits and cute minions and stylish mounts. The cities are gorgeous, the maps are big and so beautiful, you could just wonder around sideseeing. It's actually a long term quest, sideseeing.
If you consider coming back Carshald: I'm playing on the EU server Cerberus
it's one of the crowded servers though ^^° lively!