https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5ce5b1eab136ee
"The biggest factor behind the release date change was my own selfishness as the game’s director. ... As a result, we remained firmly resolved to adjust down to the smallest nuances and ensure our writing covers even the finest points of the vast and intricate story that has spanned these past 11 years since the original FFXIV to ensure that everyone can fully enjoy their adventure in Endwalker. Unfortunately, the consequence of this was that we ended up in a situation where we cut into the time required for final quality assurance checks due to this time spent on additional improvements."
This is what y'all are defending. Man was literally nitpicking the entire development and caused this. There aren't any game-breaking bugs (that they haven't discovered yet seeing as how they had to put off their last QA process lmao), just a whole lot of nitpicking over fine details. In other words, an extremely poor management decision.