Quote Originally Posted by Shippuu View Post
More creative freedom is what they are afforded by going with a new race over Viera. Viera have a history from past games, and choosing to include them as a race comes with issues. You either toss their lore and appearance out the window, which will piss off fans, or you're restricted by the pre established elements. The more freedoms you take with the design/implementation the less like their original incarnations they become.

So sure, they could make male viera look like anything, but to say everyone would be happy with how they turned out is just not true. You already saw plenty of people complaining about the female viera and they're hardly different from 12's.

With a new race, they aren't bound by these potential restrictions, and actually get to make something new. If I was a director of a big final fantasy game I'd want to put brand new stuff into the IP to make my mark too.
You're not going to get 100% approval on anything anyway, that's not really an excuse to go with one over the other.