I agree that "for an mmo-" it has been a "decent" launch, but tbh to me being a mmo- is not an excuse for releaseing something so broken anymore. It doesn't matter that "all" other mmo- do it too. I understand that there are major differences between a single player game and an mmo-, but could you imagine a single player game being released in the state most mmo- are released stating "we will patch it"? There would be an uproar without proportion, and to be honest I am starting to get annoyed that if I want to play an mmo- and experience things not everone playing the game has already, experimenting with speccs etc I have to play a completely broken game.
Of course Funcom will patch and fix problems, but I played since day one and after one month there are still so many bugs and problems that your "one week" to fix things is a definite "not going to happen". You are not trying to tell anyone it is a perfect game and I am not saying you are, but you recommended someone else to play AoC and thus I just felt I had to point out that yes the game has potential, but as of right now it is very far from that point where it is actually a good and complete mmo-. There are bugs, class balance issues, content (I do agree that there is, relative to FFXI little grinding, but questing for exp is not the only thing I would refer to as content even though it is a part of it. I would say "working, cool and complete skills/feats" and items are a big part of it. There are far too few items and if you are lvl 80 you might as well quit, because there is very little to do. Very few instances at all lvls. Even promised minigames are still missing from the game) and many other things that are just annoying and will probably be changed having to do with, for example, the UI. And since you made the comparison to FFXI and grinding I just have to state that whilst FFXI is a grind 1-75 that is the way the game was designed, it "fits" the games profile so to speak, which is not the case in AoC, it wasn't meant to be that way, it just isn't complete enough.(Yet)
Like I said, I understand it is a mmo- and "we have to give them time", all I am saying is yes, like you said, healers can solo to 80 and do decent damage which while it is a good thing(At least to some) it does in no way change the fact that there are a lot of other things with that particular game that, depending on what you are looking for, won't be as good.
In the end, from my own point of view when it comes to AoC I would say it has potential, it will probably be really good, but it will take quite a while before it actually reaches that point. Also, the BIGGEST problem for me was basically the fact that I didn't feel I had any reason whatsoever to grind even a little in that game because as the end of the day I didn't feel there was any reason to reach lvl 80 and I know there are many in the same boat as me. There were no feats I wanted, no spells, no items, no amazing big instances. Like I said, it will most likely come, but it isn't there yet and it won't be for quite a while.
When it comes to respawns I dunno, in FFXI you are only "incapacitated" and in WoW even though you don't really get an explanation in writing I think all magic and the big "angel" right by the graveyard is enough to make me feel that, if all this exists, then it is rather believable that I can rise from the dead.
