Playing an expansion as current content has been a lacklustre MMO experience

[Absurdity]

We get so little because people can barely handle even that much without losing their minds. Surely you saw the threads about what Island Sanctuary was "going to be" and how disappointed people were when they were certain it would be like that. Now imagine they gave us a more detailed plan and explanation for one of the upcoming changes... That patch day comes and things aren't as they were originally told. All hell breaks loose because "you promised us".

That's just as likely to be because it takes them way too long to actually give people concrete answers. Was it on purpose? Maybe. People hyping up Island Sanctuary probably boosted Endwalker's sales.

But if they would've just come out from the start and told people "No, you will not be able to customize your island with housing items. No, it is not instanced housing. You have presets for how it looks and the gameplay is mostly passive resource generation" suddenly expectations would've been tempered and maybe all these people incredibly pissed about Island Sanctuary "breaking promises" wouldn't even exist...but it also would've made Island Sanctuary generate a lot less hype and we obviously can't have that.