Overall a thumbs-up experience on current code, however I would agree on the old being terrible.
I made a Pally and played until 50 and started raiding APW and found the game very beautiful and had a lot going for it....
HOWEVER there was a ton of give-and-take on my part accepting many bugs and issues.
All that aside if you have the SYSTEM to play with all the settings cranked up and run the command to remove the fog the game is breathtakingly beautiful.
I loved the crafting system once I figured it out and made it to about 44 Blacksmith. Diplomacy was a lot of fun too once I finally took the time to mess with it.
My wife actually enjoyed VG as well.
One real nice idea was the way you can have your whole group strike a resource node at the same time and get 6x the resources from the one resource.
But I found myself growing addicted to it and quit.
They did release a patch to expand the level cap to 55 and the requirements to get there were so ludicrous.
I would not pass up a free trial if you have the opportunity. Also Ranger is a hella lota fun. I two boxed a Ranger&Cleric and could do some group areas.
Lastly the playerbase seems extremely helpful and there is next to no grieving.