Global crisis? Their claim was
and their reasoning was:
Very plainly: Some people from all markets complained, we have noted that not only is this icon visible in game and on merchendise, we are well within timelines to do something about it.
There does not need to be a "Global Crisis" to do something to accomodate people especially when time permits.
Great. Ask the developers. Feedback isn't always on forums, or twitter or even public social media. When complaining about something , especially something personal that causes an aversion, most people are pretty tentative about putting that out there as public knowledge. Did you see what someone did IN THIS THREAD? "oh lol you think lots of holes is gross?" *posts a revamped sage icon with the most holes possible*.. yeah.. that's the internet!
I'm not a dev so I couldn't specifically say.. but I would guess that once there were complaints about it it had been in game for too long and is side-content that doesn't need to be engaged with to play the glut of the game. Also as mentioned there's not a whole lot of "letherworker" merch. Discipline of the hand jobs aren't exactly a focus in presentation and marketing for this game. I'll eat my words when the derplander intro movie has him flash change into tailor AF and hold his shining new relic needle up.
FFXIV currently has the highest ratio of account to active player count of any MMO in the world,
https://mmo-population.com/activity
Why even dispute that? It's been the news for like.. weeks. "WoW the king is dead, long live the king" and all that.
I'm down to amend that to "one of".. but it's not like it's even below top 3 at WORST.