That's not what I meant locked by lore. I don't care that you get it from the story. The thing is, Red XIII was meant to be almost extinct...therefore can't have it as a mount...but thousands of players can all have Midgardsormr all at the same time. So their original stance apparently shifted.
And you don't think that a paladin running in and tanking in a swimsuit and sandals erodes the sense of what a tank looks like? They lost any sense of that when they started letting us glamour items like that over armor. We have naked party members and reindeer, etc.