Holly shit, that sounds indeed even more worse than on my Datacenter Chaos. At least there are on the lower populated servers still some plots left.
But i agree, i have also the impression since a long time that SE doesn't really care about the housing stuff. Everything they do in this direction feels more like a bandaid fix than anything else. Also some kind of storage for housing items would be nice so that we don't need to the space on our retainers if we currently don't own a house. Maybe something like the armory or glamour dresser where you could store all your stuff (especially event stuff) so you don't lose it.
I think most other MMOs did their job far better than FFXIV when it comes to housing. Sure ours maybe looks really nice if not the best, but the way this stuff is handled is just garbage. Also if you are into crafting and want to enjoy the sub and airship feature you are basically forced to make your own FC, because in nearly every exsisting FC this stuff is handelt by some selected members like officers and lead and the regular folks dont even really have the chance to try out this feature.