have things changed a lot since release?
like simple expected things, like seeing your party members on the map..lol
also is the game still heavily revolving around crafting more than PvE? like..do you need herbing, tailoring and goldcrafting (or w/e it was) to simply repair your armor?
pls respond..i just want to play my red mage and have fun, not focus on farming mats all day long just to repair my armor.

Nope, those changes haven't happened yet although SE is planning big updates come nov. and dec. Only big change since release would have to be that the market wards have categories but noone really follows them.

Not yet. The lodestone has a list of all the major updates they will have coming up in the next 2 months. It does look promising

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/topics/detail?id=cb4dc09784bc24b4fde2e45de9f018ec5fb504d2

that link has a list of what is to come.