Do this:
Level Black Mage all the way and buy your HQ staves. Dont worry about much else.
Join an all Black Mage dynamis shell.
Get all the stuff to make Apocalypse.
Level DRK fully in between dynamis runs
Win Apocalypse.
You have just beaten FFXI.

A DRK with Apocalypse beats anything any day of the week

What do you guys think about the Dancer and Summoner classes? I had a pretty beastly Summoner and a pretty epic Dancer.

I personally hate dancer because I think it ruined the team mentality of the game in a lot of ways. It's good solo, but in a party it's basically a job that is 2nd or 3rd on the list in terms of efficiency. As for healing, there are much better options, as for fishing there are better options, as for buffs there are better options, and as for damage it doesn't really do much. It's sort of a jack of all trades, but I wouldn't pick it over another job unless nothing else better was available. Badass solo or sub imo, but I would only invite it to a party as a last resort(ie noone else is looking for a party lol).

SMN is one of the most underrated and underutilized jobs in the game. It's so useful, I always try to invite them to parties, especially before abyssea came out. Their ability to both buff and do pretty good damage at the same time is a huge asset imo. It's a lot of work to have a good smn though, but the people who commit to the job and know what they are doing are so useful.

I had fun leveling/playing my SMN more than anything else. I was pretty beastly with it.

The game is really dying, I wouldn't bother dude >_<;

^ That really isn't true. There is more to do now than ever. Since the last server merge there is now more congestion than ever on my server.

is this game free yet?

It will never be free.

this, this mmo better than any mmo, even wow

I wouldn't go that far but it is a good MMO.

WoW has x100 the players for a reason.