It's fairly obvious most of it is being done purely because things were allowed through 20 years ago that are a bit "cringe" today, especially to someone with high regard for the project. A book with FFXI written on it is obviously silly, but it didn't really matter at the time because nobody making the game 20 years ago throught it would still be around past 5 years anyway.
Some zones are also being recreated, as in the dat files are being completely remade with all the base components. This isn't just changing textures.
The texture changes are a little annoying but not a huge deal, the only real problem is not being told this is going on.