Got my macros back.
Big thank you to Katurra of Bismarck for showing me how.
They're waiting on account approval and will post the solution here before long so people will know how to do it in the future.
I know of a few methods, but I'd love to hear yours. However, each one of these options does work:
1.) Backup the Playonline/FFXI/USER folder
2.) Close all instances of POL/FFXI, run FFXIConfig.exe and click Save Settings.
3.) From the character select screen, choose Save to Save your settings to server and make sure the displayed timestamp is correct/updated. (I don't really know what Save to HDD Slot A-D does).
If you have any other options, I'd love to hear it.
Forgot about this until seeing a thread on macros bump up just now.
Anyways seems like the method never got posted so here it is roughly, might take some googling for your specific OS since I use Windows 7, 10 and 11 support this though. Also it's a bit of a pain to do.
Basically in Windows you already have "System Protection" turned on for the drive that has FFXI installed on it so it's taking what I think are snapshots of the drive on some routine schedule for restore points. Having it on will save old versions of the macro files.
As a precaution before trying this you can use FFXIConfig's "In Game Settings" Save feature in case you're afraid of screwing up anything further.
If you ever have a situation where your macro palette got wiped you can try this:
1. Edit a macro in that palette with a searchable word like "MissingMacroHere" or anything that can be searched easily.
2. Log out or might even have to quit out the game entirely. I've tried zoning and that didn't always work so if you want to try that instead your mileage my vary.
3. Use a program like Notepad++ with its "Find in Files" function to search your ..\PlayOnline\SquareEnix\FINAL FANTASY XI\USER folder wherever you have the game installed for the keyword (i.e. "MissingMacroHere") you saved in the wiped macro palette prior.
4. Once you have the filename and its location in the search result you can navigate to it in explorer, check its properties, go to the previous versions tab and copy the old version out to someplace like desktop then back in over the current one (at least on win7 for me, my restore button is busted idk why) or just hit restore on an older version if that works for you.
Note: You can try opening the file before copy over to confirm it more or less has the macros in it you remember, it will be a little mangled looking in a text editor because of how the file is formatted, but the old hand written macro lines should be evident.
5. Log back in to see the macros restored.
Sorry if details aren't as clear as they should be, but hopefully this points people in the right direction and saves some grief.