SE wanted to target a MUCH LARGER group of people for FFXIV:ARR, this means not just the ps3 market, but also the casual gamer who does not have a nice gaming PC. Guess what type of PC the average casual player who plays FFXIV has?, well I can say its not a gaming computer and the sheer fact that many average non-gaming PC have to turn down everything to a minimum (making it essentially a PS3 version with more loaded on screen at one time). This is just as much of a reason as the PS3 as to why you see the changes made from 1.0 which was hard to run on a low end gaming PC (and couldn't be run well on a non-gaming PC).

Also, further evidence that it is not 100% the ps3, if you go do research their are features left out of the PS3 version which are on the PC version (Focus target for example). If they were making everything the same and going by the limitations of the PS3 for everything focus target and other things would not exist in the game currently.