I've been playing the trial and enjoying it, on the Virtue server. I'll probably grab the full copy today; at $19 it seems like a great deal, even if it's boring before the first month is over.
(Note: graphical settings are set to 'ludicrously low' so it'll run.)
I think I spent eight hours so far in the character creator, but that's my current one. It was almost entirely designed by a friend of mine, actually, so I can't take the credit.
...and I imagine leveling up still exists because, as long as the grind isn't too tedious, leveling up is usually fun. Watching your character grow from a minimally powered hero into a courageous legend who can take on sixteen arch-demons at the same time-- that's fun, really, the same way raising a plant is fun, I suppose.
It's why books start with the hero confused and scared and end with him triumphing over all that tried to stop him (usually)! It's easy to forget that when games do things like "You have to kill 23 more spotted leopardkin kobolds!" or "You're only 1,403,216,343 exp to level 87!"
Dwarf Fortress handles this particularly elegantly I say, because even a brand new adventurer has that tiny chance of a direct blow to the heart...
Anyway! If anyone wants to join up, I've been meaning to create a new character anyway; I only have one, after all. We could find a mutual server or all join somebody else's server or whatever is cool. As I said, I'm on Virtue now. Most folks appear to be on Freedom.