I am in huge agreement with your post here.

Though, for me, I have to stop coming onto the General Discussion portion of the forums because people are crying "nerf" over arbitrary alterations, and claiming it's the end of the world because Summoners can't use Thunder anymore and Bards cut evasion by 10% instead of damage.

And I do understand where the Housing prices are coming from. It's highly mathematical and playing off of the idea of Supply and Demand in such a way that they can keep housing data small until they can secure some extra server space for that, then drop the price to reasonable levels. Purely a theory at this point (not trying to be apologist, just trying to rationalize why they might be doing it instead of blindly claiming that the entirety of SE are somehow doing this maliciously with no realistic motive). It doesn't mean I agree with their decision, but I at least feel like I can tell why they made it.