Quote Originally Posted by Enkidoh View Post
It should also be noted that lore-wise, chocobos in Eorzea have only just come back from the very brink of extinction, just prior to the Calamity a devastating plague called 'chocobo blight' was afflicting chocobos across Aldernard, forcing the Ishgardian stables to quarantine their birds and thus preventing them from providing them to the other city states. This was the in-game lore reason given at the start of 1.0 why players were unable to ride chocobos then.
I did not know that, but that is a very good reason that chocobos aren't terribly diverse. However, horses are non existant in the game outside of player mounts, from what I know, so I'm still scratching my head as to why they went that way instead of chocobos. Maybe the model is easier to work with?