I agree that in isolation none of these references are overwhelming. And the odd 'little birds' wouldn't bother me in the slightest; I like the phrase on its own, and it doesn't stick out when it's just once or twice in the whole game (however, I counted three instances of the line in one day of questing recently, which does rather stand out when there are other references to the series everywhere else yet seldom is there a single bird, actual or metaphorical, in sight). But as has been said, why not 'Final Fantasy' it up a little or at least keep the nudges to non-story elements where they can be appreciated by those who know and ignored by those who are trying to take the game's world-building moderately seriously?

I have a friend who doesn't know about GoT and the in-jokes like the RDM one don't sound clever at all to her, just bewildering. Obviously character names and most popularised period linguistic tics go completely over her head, but I know that our localisation team is clever enough to be able to write their own excellent dialogue without inserting ASoIaF into every possible piece of content just because they love it so darn much.

Anyway, I've taken the quest now so it's not like I'm going to keep crying over it, just wanted to get it off my chest. Glad that at least some of you enjoy it ;p