While it may seem silly in what ever corner of the gaming world you come from, it's a reality to most MMO Players. Most MMORPG's (including some of the big names) have regional servers. This really shouldn't come as a shock, it's not often that Japanese players play or interact with anyone who isn't Japanese anyway.
To me when Yoshida says, "The players will have a choice of selecting a server based in their region or a server overseas," it means they're making the servers regional. Like I already mentioned what you guys are suggesting isn't even possible to the extent of my knowledge.
I think you guys are also getting confused about what a data center is. A data center is a place that houses servers like mentioned in the post above. Please read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_center
It's true that FFXI uses multi-regional servers, but FFXI was also released in 2002, and development for the game started well before the new millenium; to give you an idea of how long ago, I can remember FFIX, X, and XI all being announced at the same time shortly after the release of VIII... Things are a lot different now than they were then, servers are cheaper, and the MMO industry has grown up.
