It was the fourth most profitable MMO in the world in 2013, and had microtransaction sales ranked just beneath WoW's in 2014. Subjectivity about game quality aside, it was absolutely successful.
And considering SWTOR managed to build a freaking flight simulator into their themepark MMO while creating their housing system and releasing content patches and developing an expansion, I'm pretty sure your argument that making the housing system sensible and workable would suck up resources kind of falters.
While FFXIV over all is really well designed and looking to get even better, their housing system is an abysmal failure when compared to any other competitive product on the market.
