I think a lot of players have this perception that male Midlanders are the "average joe" of the game. And while they do make up a good portion of the population, they are actually on the shorter end of the male race height chart. Female Viera would feel short in this chart, but they are definitely on the taller side in the female race height chart.
Actually, that's my prediction for male Viera. I predict that the male Viera will be between male Highlander and male Elezen, just like how right now, female Viera is between female Highlander and female Elezen. I wouldn't feel that's small at all.
Female Viera was an option for players who wanted to play an elegant, tall girl race without having to choose Elezen or Roegadyn. People asking for the female Viera to be shorter so they can be as short as the female Miqo'te felt unfair because it sounded like people who want to play shorter characters were trying to take away a tall character option from people who want to play taller characters. And that's how I feel when people demand that male Viera be as short as male Miqo'te.
Even though we don't know exactly how tall male Viera are supposed to be, we can get a general sense when we look at past evidence: Yoshi saying they would be Elezen-like, concept art depicting them as tall, etc. So it definitely raises hopes for players like me who want a tall, pretty boy race that isn't Elezen.
I definitely see what you mean. However, I don't 100% agree that making males taller than females is hijacking.
I say this because in this game, the grand majority of races follow the same dimorphism rule: that males are, in general, taller than females (just like in real life). Of course, most races can have their females be taller if the female is put at maximum height and the male is put at average or minimum height. For example, a male Elezen at minimum height is shorter than a female Elezen at maximum height. That's totally fine and normal. I wouldn't object at all to a minimum height male Viera being shorter than a maximum height female Viera. I think it would be the most logical. And, if you make that male Elezen maximum height, he's going to be taller than a max height female Elezen. Despite this being a fantasy game with fantasy races, the game does try to reflect how average heights for males and females work in real life.
It's like the example I used of Thailand and the Netherlands. Average height for men and women in Thailand is 5'6" and 5'2". In the Netherlands, women, on average, are taller than Thai men, standing at 5'7". However, Dutch men on average are 5'11". And the grand majority of the races in this game work this way as well. The only exception are Lalafells and Au Ra.
So I don't think it's a stretch to assume that male Viera will be taller than females. I don't think it's unreasonable.
If you made male Viera shorter than the females, the male Viera would be imbalanced in the male race chart. It would be imbalanced because most of the other races, males are taller than females. That's what happened to female Au Ra. Female Au Ra being made shorter caused the imbalance. If the female Au Ra were made to be proportional to their male counterparts, the racial height charts for both males and females would line up evenly.
This is what I mean.
For the most part, the racial height charts line up evenly, with the exception of Au Ra. That's because female Au Ra were not made to be proportional to the males.
If we wanted male Viera to fit in according to the rule that most of the other races follow, then male Viera would have to be taller than female. But that doesn't mean male Viera is going to be taller than Elezen, Hrothgar, etc. It just means that male Viera is proportional to the females.
So to me, it makes the most sense that male Viera height would be between male Highlander and male Elezen. Just like how it wouldn't be surprising for female Hrothgar height to be between female Roegadyn and female Elezen.