Well probably that they wanted housing to actually be houses in a neighbourhood instead of the "room" that was FFXI. People keep saying about they want instanced housing... how could that even work? Do you not want to go outside the house? If you just want the interior then the apartments are coming (3.4?), but if you want an outside to the house then what exactly would be around your house if it was an instance? A fake neighbourhood? How far in this fake neighbourhood can you go? Or should it just be a view? Seems a bit lonely? Maybe it's because I've made many friends at the marketboard though...
It's because the currently housing wards are always active, always running because someone is always in them and if you add it up, there's more housing wards than actual zones in the game (excluding individual dungeon instances which run on separate servers!). They may/may not have it set so the ward shuts down if no one is using it, but given how many AFK people I've personally seen in housing wards, I doubt many of them get shut down.
But then we badly need sufficient houses for everyone, so maybe houses with no neighbours/fake neighbourhoods in the background are the best we can hope for :(
