This is one of those situations where it has to be asked: were you going after mediums and larges only, or were you entering even on the undesirable smalls so you would have a better chance?
Even Coeurl has had a few lottery periods where some small plots in the personal wards went without any bids. Since you said you "packed things up", it sounds like you had a house but kept losing when you tried to upgrade. Otherwise no packing would be needed.
I agree the system sucks but it has nothing to do with the lottery. It is what it has always been - a supply problem. Even if there are technically enough houses for each player on a world, there aren't enough of each size/location that players actually want to own.
Those numbers are for all time characters created, not active characters. The active character populations on the NA worlds are going to be closer to 30k-35k.
Crystal is considered the RP data center and so demand for housing is higher since many RPers feel having a house essential. Being raid-centric, Aether is going to have a larger percentage of players with no interest in housing and so there's less competition.
Congestion is something that SE sets based on online activity and character creation as opposed to overall population. I'm surprised that Coeurl has been Congested for several months now. Usually Mateus is the world that sits as Congested alongside Balmung.
He's got a house. He's been complaining that he can't win the upgrade he wants.
