I do think FFXIV suffers terribly from the lack of a major rival. Blizzard sat on their hands for years despite many requests for broader character customisation in World of Warcraft yet to their credit they updated their character models across the board once already and are set to do so again during their upcoming expansion.

I'd also note that very few companies are going to actually put forward anything other than carefully manufactured PR statements in the face of controversy - and the missing gender situation is very much a controversy.