I can see some social appeal to housing, but this game is driven by impersonal endgame combat activities. 'Kill this stuff as fast as possible, no time to chat person from another server, I just want to be done with this so I can log off and do something fun' is the mentality I encounter outside my free company.
To me though housing and vanity is kind of like dress-up Barbie in a play house while all the other guys are blowing up GI-Joe outside.