The common misconception is that development does not take much time when it actually does. That doesn't just mean coding systems together, capturing and implementing new animations, looks of armor, and cut scenes. It also means how are they going to develop the world to be cohesive with the new systems and balancing already implemented content.

You cannot add in, take out, or swap content and have it not effect the rest of the world, systems, and it's lore. You just can't.

This is where the time is going. Sure, you may be able to build stuff similar in your own experience as a developer, but I can tell you it probably isn't as expensive and polished looking as to what Square-Enix's standards are. Not saying whatever they make is spun gold, but I can say any small time developer trying to argue the pace FFXIV is going can't fully know what is going on. They only have a narrow understanding of it. You've never worked with crystal tools. You have no clue what they may have to go through in bad or in good.