I only played PSO I&II (Gamecube) offline. I shat bricks when I reached Ultimate Ruins and Ultimate Seabed respectively and stood there with my lousy HUmar.
Anyway, I say people should definitely give PSO2 NA/EU a chance because the outlook for the PSU sequels on the PSP were rather positive. And PSO2 JP is doing way better than just good imo. While it's not hard to screw up, I imagine they also shouldn't have a hard time doing things right at least to an acceptable extent this time.