BONUSES OF FAME
So why good does fame do for you? In FFXI Gil, gaining fame will open up many possibilities that wouldn't be there otherwise. As your fame increases, other quests become available that were not accessible at lower levels of fame. Not only that, but completing simple quests will often provide an opportunity to access later quests in that series; many NPCs have multiple quests which they give out in a certain order. These later quests often provide more substantial rewards than the early ones. An ongoing attempt to list all the quests in the game by the fame level required to obtain them can be found here. Quests are a nice way to add to your bank account, both by the gil rewarded directly and by selling off the quest rewards that you don't need to other players.

Quests also break up the monotony of leveling and provide information about the world of Vana'diel. Taking off time from gaining levels to do quests is a fun way to see more of the game. As your fame raises, you will find that many NPCs will react differently to you, and tend to treat you a bit better. One concrete benefit from fame is the change in the price of items at merchants, whether standard vendors or Regional Merchants. The higher your fame, the lower the price of goods when you buy from a merchant who is related to that group of fame, and the more a merchant will pay when you sell goods. Each item does have a minimum price when sold from a merchant, beyond which it will not drop. Note that you can increase your fame beyond level 9, which will not provide a new fame message, but will be reflected in further benefits when buying or selling at merchants.