Are the Islands better than owning a house?

[sagacious]

Apartment? Decorating, very limited gardening.
Private house? Gardening plots, decorating.
FC house? As the prior but also comes with a workshop which is fairly substantial.

The island sanctuary is more like an outdoor version of a FC house, but instead of airships and submarines, its cowries and what rewards they offer. But still misses out on having a lot of gardening plots.

But still 100's of forum posts wanted instance housing and we got instance islands. Square hit two rocks with one stone by not angering the housing owners and providing the entire player base a Island home. I'd say that's a win win for sure .