The ONLY statement Square Enix mentioned was that the emergency maintenance was to make a single item dye-able. That's why everyone was assuming it was the only reason they brought down the servers to perform maintenance. They certainly may have done other things, but like I said, they neglected to answer us about it.
I can't speak for EU players about when primetime may be... but I do know that, for the NA servers from 7:00 A.M. to 10:00 A.M., my server only has 1/10 of the players online (or less). I have 8 fairly active linkshells, and hardly anyone is online when I check during these times. Surely it's similar in EU, though? D: And "your" definition is not automatically the correct one. In fact, no one's is; no matter what time they schedule maintenance, there will NEVER--EVER--EVER--EEEVVVEEERRRR be 100% satisfaction. That's just life.
Anyway, here is my input in this thread:
In NA, maintenance is scheduled very late at night, typically from midnight until 3:00 A.M. my time. I don't think this is unreasonable--GO TO BED, it's BED TIME. I would say the "primetime" ballpark for NA is 2:00 P.M. until about 11:00 P.M..
For EU, maintenance is typically 7:00 A.M. until 10:00 A.M.? ...ish? I don't think that's too unreasonable, either: I'm sure about >50% of people are at work making money, and most of the rest are busy trying to wake up, eating breakfast, going for their morning jog or... well... still asleep. A lot of people you see online overnight or in the early mornings are AFK anyway, lol (at least on my server, and I'm sure most others).
I'm sorry, but many of the people complaining here either don't understand how deciding maintenance times work, are upset because they think the world revolves around them or are simply just unlucky. For those of you who say "every single time I log into the game, I'm hit with maintenance," if you only play the game once a week--as you're implying--you probably don't have enough time to get your money's worth out of the game. I would just unsubscribe and save money if you have THAT many other dedications in your life. D: And, no, simply breaking up with your girlfriend will only make more issues, i'm sure. I'm positive the person who said that was mostly joking. Don't listen to them. lol.