In the most recent Final Fantasy XI digest we were told that the current developers have been using 20-year-old software to produce new content. It was also mentioned that this sets the 'limit' to the Voracious Resurgence. The reasons for the downsizing given to us was because the devs are using 20-year-old development equipment and also they want to move onto other projects to expand their horizons.
What doesn't make sense is why not just purchase new development hardware/software? It doesn't have to be 'end of the line' equipment, or to the extent to make a remake, just to make the current devs (if they don't hire new ones) make better use of their time. One would assume that this would be more efficient than the dinosaur hardware and software they've been using. This would also give the current devs 'newer' software to learn, and expand their horizons (albeit on the same game). Additionally, they could always hire new developers to replace them who are already trained on said new hardware/software.
Given we are going to get the servers replaced with newer ones (because they are too old and might break), it makes me wonder why not do the same thing with the developer hardware and/or software, or at least some aspects of it?
In terms of financing such an endeavor, they could easily use the current 'cash cow' of 14 to fund this, much like they used the former 'cash cow' of 11, after they fail-bombed the original release of 14 and had to remake the entire game.
And I really believe at this point in time, the technology to do some sort of 'remake' at least in part to some systems would not longer be some sort of 'insurmountable' task like we've heard many times before. Spaghetti code or not, when you can teleport energy on the quantum level from one point in space time to another, it really makes you wonder if the original coding poses that much of a complication any longer?