I haven't played the game, but you're right about multiplayer accessibility. The friend code thing is just lazy design imo. 

@Axxol
Indeed!  
 
And i apologize in advance for the "typo Title....NorthA ??" Oh well.... 
 

 The most ironic thing is that the local wireless multiplayer wasn't what got Japan all crazy about Dragon Quest 9.  It was the passive communication Tag mode, which apparently made such an impact that the 3DS is going to include it in the actual hardware, where it will constantly run not unlike how the Wii is constantly on the internet.  

In Japan, Dragon Quest 9 was published by Square Enix like their other usual games.  Nintendo decided to publish Dragon Quest 9 in the US because they saw the phenomenon that occured in Japan with Tag Mode, wanted to try and bring that kind of success to the US, and had the money to put up for a giant marketing push.  Seriously, I don't remember the last time I saw a Nintendo commercial on TV, let alone at the movie theaters.  It seems like that exact opposite happened: if Nintendo didn't pick up Dragon Quest 9 and Square Enix published the game themselves, how much money would they put into advertising?  Would Square Enix hire a marketing company and send QA people all across the country in order to hold modestly sized tag events in order to get people to use the multiplayer features?  I'm less sure, because Square Enix doesn't have nearly the marketing budget of Nintendo, and Dragon Quest has historically performed much worse in America compared to their other flagship franchise, Final Fantasy.  
In Japan, Dragon Quest 9 was published by Square Enix like their other usual games.   It was also developed like any other Dragon Quest game: how could they make a game that would sell millions in Japan?  Therefore, I don't think it's unusual that, despite their best efforts in making the 'westerners' Dragon Quest, they didn't quite get it right.  If it seems unusual that Square Enix would seemingly alienate an entire continent's audience, look at it in reverse: would Rockstar change the Grand Theft Auto formula just to make it sell copies in Japan?  How would that go over in America?  Is that decision really wise? Who in Japan would really care, anyways?
  
In one of the interviews with Yuji Horii on the Dragon Quest IX website, Horii talks about how he tried to incorporate the multiplayer is such a way that a family could play the game together, and parents could directly help their children from within the game, rather than just giving advice from outside.  While I think that this is extremely detached from the reality of gaming culture, especially in America where a generation of adult gamers is only just being created, I think the idea behind it still stands: Yuji Horii wanted to make Dragon Quest 9 a game where people communicated on a level more personal than interacting with strangers over the internet whom you'll never meet again.  And frankly, he succeeded with me; I met 2 people through the Dragon Quest 9 tag events whom I've now met with outside of the Nintendo sanctioned events, just to play Dragon Quest 9 together. 
All that being said, it really would have been great to have wifi functionality within Dragon Quest 9 that incorporated features from the Pokemon games.  We can only imagine how the Dragon Quest multiplayer would have been with Wifi connectivity, voice chat, and maybe even video chat (although looking at when Dragon Quest was developed and released, that last one is most likely a pipe dream from the start).  But with Horii's vision for how multiplayer interaction within Dragon Quest should be, would adding full wifi multiplayer (as opposed to only local wireless) really make people want to meet up, have conversations about the game, and potentially draw more people in?  I think developers are still trying to find a better solution to this, and there definitely isn't going to be a single, uniform solution that can be applied to all cultures.
 
On your other point, it's true that Dragon Quest 9's 'party' is pretty void of personality.  Your main character is the usual silent, goody two-shoes protagonist, while the rest of your party is silent simply because the designers couldn't think of a way to make unique, appropriately assigned personalities that would go with every single possible party member possibility.  So yes, you're left with a party that doesn't talk, let alone make the witty comments of Yangus (DQ8), Bowser (M&L3), or Yosuke (P4).  The characters are akin to those of Dragon Quest 3, where you also rolled your own party, rather than of Dragon Quest 4, 5, and 8, where everyone but the main character was given a name and personality.
On the other hand, I found Dragon Quest 9 to have a ton of charming side characters.  While the story is not nearly as epic as Dragon Quest 5 (I haven't quite finished 8 yet), it is instead interesting in how the side characters interact with the main character.  When playing the main story, the tasks you take up in order to help the people around you feel more significant on a personal level, rather than on a grandiose, world-shattering scale.  It seems that the main star of the game is the world you explore and all the people you end up interacting with it, and in the end, this becomes the motivation to teach the final boss a lesson or two.   And maybe I'm naive, faint of heart, or something, but some of the main story quests were downright heart-wrenching and unexpected in their resolution...

I find the game awesome and aggravating in equal measure.  On the one hand I have a very finely crafted JRPG that I can take anywhere with me.  On the other, there is no one else playing this game.  I've used the tag mode in a major city and I got zero guests showing up in my inn.  Outside of the Nintendo sponsored events I have gotten only one person while shopping at Best Buy.  And since I missed PAX Prime this year that was my last real chance to enjoy multiplayer and tagging until another convention comes around (most likely PAX East).  This game has the same problem as an MMORPG.  If you don't have friends to play it almost doesn't seem worth it.  But I'm holding on and evangelizing when I can to push this game to as many people as possible.  
 
Also, the lack of open wifi hotspots that don't require you to agree to terms and whatnot really hampers the DLC.  Configuring the router didn't work and without a browser my DS simply won't connect.  If only I could get my hands on a USB wifi connector that didn't cause grief.