When I set my eyes on a grind I always follow through. The base game A Realm Reborn is quite a slog, that's true. It gets better in the expansions. Quests are still a bit fetchy but at least you're not going back and forth between the same three NPCs for 30 minutes. The focus shiftes more towards the story as well which has kept me engaged and forgetting everything about the mediocre tasks the quests make me do.
I'm guessing you played this a while back? Dungeon queues shouldn't be much more than 10-15 minutes for any class now. They have something called roulettes which is basically random dungeon finders. Leveling roulettes pairs you up with anyone doing low level story dungeons and there's quite decent rewards for max level players for doing them. They also get scaled down so the dungeon doesn't become a cakewalk.
sounds as though they made some much-needed improvements. I do remember the dungeons being extremely easy as well. Even though I was a healer I had a chance to throw a rock or two even though it wasn't necessary.
I don't even remember how far I made it into the game, I'm guessing about halfway to max level. I don't do MMO's anymore but i was looking the other day and FF still has quite the userbase.
Oh and answer your question, yes, it was quite some time ago, at least 3 years ago.