See, that's the thing. Right liek, 20s after I made that post I went on that spiel with my friends and I figured out I must be the only one to think this way.
But- The signature and the inventory have a single particular difference that makes, well, all the difference. The signature's elements are static, the level values might change (and heck, it was quite confusing when I changed signatures, because the other one's got bugged and I had to change styles), but there is nothing added or removed from it.
Now picture you having to stop after each and every battle to re-sort your bag because of loot.
Augh, that causes me nightmares. There is a single big problem with sorting on grids, the fact is that a grid is a GRID, which means it extends on the X and Y axis, so the next item on the list could either be to the right or below the item, both equally viable, both also end up 'wrapping over', causing possible confusion!
Also to the person who said I was used to it from XI... I... Actually never played that game. In fact I simply hate playing inventory tetris and hell, ALL of my computer is configured to show stuff in lists instead of icons, even did as much as I could with my desktop.
Other MMOs i've played included Ultima Online (the mother of bags in MMOs!), Ragnarok Online (which is essentially just one bag, does not uses a list) and City of Heroes (holy crap the salvage fucking tab, so awful, so fucking awful). So as you can see, all bags, all bad.
But i've resigned to believing i'm the only one who simply prefer lists, specially if they offer added details like spiritbind %, condition, materia and sell price without having to mouseover.
Regardless, the UI will be moddable, I WILL learn whatever language, even if it has to be goddamn assembler, and change it to my tastes, no need to be a bother to everyone simply because i'm in the minority here.