Go to Character Selection from System Menu

Right now, the System menu allows us the "Log Out" and "Exit Game" options.

I wonder why there is not a "Character Selection" option.

When I'd like to switch to a different character in the same world, I need to log out of the datacenter, log in again to the datacenter with "Start", and then select the character.

When I'd like to switch to a different character in the same world/datacenter, it is quite a long process, for something that can be shortened. And, I think, puts less stress on the datacenter itself as there will be no logout/login trip to it.

Maybe there are other technical reasons for not having it?

I agree that this should be considered.

Some might argue that FFXIV is not at all an alt-friendly game (which is granted to a degree) and that one player should have one character with all jobs, however I prefer a different point of immersion where I only take a handful of jobs per character (which make sense from an in-character morality system) and decide a different route than taking one of 19 souls. But even with that being said, less and less people think this way, while more and more people opt for alts (for any reason, be it more retainer slots on an extra character or anything else).

As of 6.1, the character limit (per world) has even been removed from entry level subscriptions, allowing all paying players to have 8 characters on a single world. This leads me to believe steps are being taken to alleviate alternative character handicaps, and the natural next step would be to allow logging into a different character without being forced to the end of the queue on any given world.