Wow! Glad you're enjoying it. There are so so so many references / fan service-y moments for FF fans, I find it fascinating that you may have the reverse experience and link those older games to XIV as that what's you've experienced first.
XII is a very good choice to follow XIV (or play alongside it, I guess, given the nature of MMOs). It's worth mentioning though that, if you weren't already aware, the guy who 'saved' FFXIV, Yoshi-P, is lead producer on FFXVI, and it's Director's and a lot of the lineage of the rest of the team goes back to FF Tactics, Vagrant Story and XII. What I'm getting at is, if you enjoy the tone and style of XIV, you may well enjoy XVI too when it is out.