I take some heart from these comments during one of the pt1 guest Q&As:

Itaru-san requests for more character customization options like making their character older (wrinkles). Yoshida answers by saying that the technology at tha time wasn’t advanced enough to include a lot of options for customization. Second, the body customization (fat or slim) may cause the body polygon to go haywire if they allow such option and us players will not be pleased about it. However, as said in the keynote they ARE currently challenging in allowing more options in body optimization. Not much at first but they want to gradually solve the challenge
I think significant changes are unlikely until they make the decision to upgrade the graphics engine and convert existing asset models to high res ones, but incremental updates until such a time may well be on the table.

I'm also in support of giving this option to midlanders, and generally races with facial hair.