Why does everything take so long?

[Ostia]

This is one guy doing this in 5 hours, you mean to tell me if the SE devs divided up the work and really REEEALLY wanted to they couldnt give us a functioning AH in a week? I think they could. Blizzard would be able to do it.

Blizzard would have turned this game around in 3 months period. Unlike the FFXI team blizzard actually updates it's player base on changes that are forthcoming, for example during the late Wrath developing cycle, they where going to release 2 events revolving around trolls and midgets, they gave us the heads up 4 months before they where released, they had an entire website up for those events, where you had screenshots, videos, introductions, lore, enemy information etc etc.

All that 4 months before the content was completed, here we got a "Possible before you die content will be added" and thats it. I have yet so see any actual evidence that they are working on company's etc etc.

[Elexia]

Blizzard would have turned this game around in 3 months period. Unlike the FFXI team blizzard actually updates it's player base on changes that are forthcoming

Here's the MMOs I actively play:

FFXI, FFXIV, Rappelz, Air Rivals, Iris, Ragnarok Online, AI.

All give information or communication with their player base especially about upcoming changes and additions that could change the gameplay, like with XI, as you mentioned, they gave us information about how Dynamis is being redesigned for May's update.

Fair enough they redesigning a lot but thats just a fancy word for extensive tweaking, because that is all they're doing, they not deleting the entire system and recoding from scratch.

Actually, that's what redesigning is in game development, and most companies that are open about when they're redesigning something will use the phrase "from scratch to fit a new design we have envisioned." FPSs tend to be the main culprit of this due to engine updates or change in the genre, e.g dual melee attack types.