Hi Balrock, welcome back to FFXI! There could be a few EU based groups around, but.. the game has changed a lot since Gaia days.. and the good news is that as long as you can rustle up a 2-3 friends to bash with, you wont need a big LS anymore.. at least not right now. There are still big LS, but with the increase in level cap, as well as lots of stuff becoming 'uncapped', for good or bad stuff ain't as hard as it used to be!
Experience is easy to come by to cap you to 90/95 (mostly shout groups in your new home, Port Jeuno), and once your jobs are there you can farm some AF3 armours and upgrade your gear pretty casually joining shouts or duo/trio. There's nowhere near as much competition now for it all too compared to 6-9 months ago, so its not a bad time to come back provided you can find some old faces around. I still a few of the guys on sometimes.. Barbarian and Kozy are still on a fair bit :)
Edited, Sep 6th 2011 5:51am by Tylaar