Forcing players to pay to keep housing is unfair.

[Naunet]

So what's more important, continuing the formula that has been successful so far, or focusing on a somewhat popular feature that most players don't heavily focus on, even if they participate in the content on some level.

You can't focus heavily on housing in this game because there is almost nothing to do with it. The customization is extremely limited. The supply is extremely limited. The "extra" features are time-consuming and monotonous, or only available to people with FC housing. Heck, it's even difficult to decorate what you have because decor is ridiculously expensive. That's like making a crap sandwich and then deciding it's not worth improving the sandwich because nobody is liking it much anyway. The extreme popularity of good housing systems in other games makes it beyond clear that this would be a worthwhile investment of time and money.

Here's a baffling question for you disregarding the fairness of the demolition period, if everyone wants instanced housing so much, regardless of size, why does barely anyone get apartments?

Apartments are even smaller with a stupidly small item limit. As someone who greatly enjoys housing in WildStar, why would I even bother getting an apartment in this game? Although it has no demolition timer, it's even more limited than the individual houses.