Has the exp rate increased?

Not really, Quest XP was increased on some quests especially repeatables. There is also some chick who gives 2 hour Lodas Amulets on a 4 hr CD for alts, I was only able to obtain the quest on my main though(so i cant use them for that character), they are however able to be stored in account warehouses.

Didn't hear about the extra lodas amulets things. Where is the NPC for that?

Flora i think? she's just inside the main entrance of sanctum, before the road splits. I assume it would be in a similar location in panda if you're asmo.

xp increased on crafts/gathering/aether gathering, but not in general afaik.

Ah cool, thanks for the info

or right after the teleporter in pand

No

not really

just quest exp

Not really, but they made note in the latest November Community Address that they are planning on nerfing the grind again.
http://na.aiononline.com/board/notices/view?articleID=165&page=

Finally, outside of the complaints about bots and the RMT vermin, perhaps the biggest criticism from our players comes in relation to the pacing, experience curve, item drops, and overall difficulty and risk vs. reward in Aion current gameplay. I'm glad to share some preliminary responses from the Development Team and affirm to you their willingness to address these issues. Obviously, data tuning on a live MMO isn't something you do carelessly, and it will take some time to fully implement. In the near future, we hope to deploy a short-term enhancement to address some of concerns that you have told us about across the board. We're currently testing some game variables to increase experience gain and other factors. We look forward to sharing some good news on this soon.