only getting 95% of what we're paying for.

[Shougun]

I love housing but nothing relies on it to function properly.

Imo that's the sad part. If everyone could have housing features then we could see better housing features (both feature set and feature quality). Although I would add at this moment it already hurts a FC not to have a house so, maybe not missing a windshield level issue but certainly more than nothing.

Two word: World Visit.

Every NA preferred world is getting placed on Crystal with Mateus and Balmung. You don't have to leave your friends. You'll be free to continue playing with unhindered as long as they're going to be on a Crystal world.

If you're not on the server your FC is part of then you wont get the buffs/most features of the FC (can chat), there are other restrictions not mentioned yet, some restrictions mentioned like marketboard, and you can't have your house on a server that isn't your home - these do lend to it being a greater hassle/not as easy fun/ Since you potentially have to leave your FC, marketboard, home of preferred access, and lose some QoL in order to get a house - which unfortunately could help the experience turn into buyers remorse over time. Certainly worth looking into though and could be a perfect fit for some players, just saying it's not perfect solution and can come with a lot of new and perhaps experience changing/ruining issues - imo at least.

Ideally everyone gets a house regardless of server, like many western MMOs (I like Wild Star's house system personally) but specifically we can reference LOTR online which has an automatically growing ward system (exceptionally similar to FFXIV's but theirs grows automatically when one ward becomes full).