Ok so - beat the main story line and working on end game stuff now.
First: the combat does get more fun, though it is still clunky when fighting a bunch of enemies at once. Overall it's still engaging and fun and makes me want to play the end game more.
Second: What the absolute fuck was that story? It felt like it was missing the middle 10 chapters. We go from the empire invading, with all of this mystery as to what's going on, to suddenly the empire is basically just a bunch of daemons and everyone is dead - all being controlled by the chancellor.
I don't think I've ever played an FF that felt this disjoint or incomplete.
As for end game stuff, I'm still going to go through and beat the optional dungeons and bosses and stuff - but what do ya'll do for leveling up? I've been doing the cactuar timed quest, but that and even the adamantoise spamming is super slow past level 100.