You think our Cash shop is bad...take a look at THIS

[Risvertasashi]

but have since been retired in favor of adding new seasonal items in game. Putting those in the cash shop provides new players who were not here, or players who were absent during or did not play the seasonal events an avenue to obtain specific things.

You make it sound like these options are mutually exclusive. Those old items used to be available on seasonal event vendors for a tiny amount of gil, while new items you would get from the quest or some other participation.

It's not like seasonal items could never be obtained again before the cash shop, nor did we have to give up having new items for them to reappear.

edit: In fact, the whole controversy kicked off when, for some reason, the vendor that sells the previous years' items was conspicuously missing from that year's Halloween event. And then... Enter the Mog Station.