First time back in a yearFollow

Hey how's everybody doing? I just returned to playing FFXI after exactly 1 year and 1 day of not playing (according to playonline) but I was able to reactivate my account since I noticed them still billing me and only cancelled the subscription on February 28th. I came back on figuring I'd start over on a random server but I was able to reactivate my account hah. Anyways, I haven't played in a year and I am a level 55 thief and I was just wondering how the economy and gameplay is going currently on Shiva. Is it worth trying to get thief into the 70s or is getting a party around 55 even tougher now? Of course I'll need to get the feel back and get re-familiar with my macros before exp partying but I was just sort of wondering how the server is doing as a whole right now. My Linkshell is clearly broken up after one year and nobody one my friends list seems to play anymore so its tough to dive right back into this game hah. Thanks in advance to all who reply.

The subscriber base has seemed to go down a bit, and it might make parties harder to get, but that could also be a positive and a negative. A lot of items have gone down in price so dramatically at the AH. I mean a year ago, a Noble's Tunic was 11 million and now it's 1.3 mil... Many more items being accessible to people is always a plus!