Voting with my wallet

[Felessan]

That can be said on P2W kind of shop too. Invest more money instead of time/efforts for ingame power. That way power is accesible for those investing time in game and the casuals "investing time working irl(?)" lol

Not really, because P2W allows to buy a direct product of efforts and thus allow real-life rich to skip player tiers and attains statuses for which they do not qualify in-game. Vanity shop only allow to buy byproducts - you can't really buy wealth for real money (officially) and thus you are limited in choices.
If you can buy stats - it's directly translates into power and thus affecting the whole part of gameplay that depends on power. Buying vanity for real money does not gives you "buying power" in game - you can't change 3 minions for a new in-game mount and 7 minion for a house.

In other words, whenever there is a failing in the game, the solution is not to make the game better but to expect the players to pay extra money to attain their in-game goals. You are asking for gindy gameplay to remain grindy, unaffordable items to remain unaffordable, and an endgame market you call "the same as cash shop" to simply remain the status quo.

Its not a failing. It keeps economy active and running, provides some downflow of money from rich to mainstream crowd, puts a motivation goals for many who wants to obtain this rare items and it put some light into the life of hardcore crafters/gatherers/merchants/enterpreneurs who like to earn money and want something fancy to spend on those tens of millions they have.

So, the only people who can flourish in FFXIV are the top minority of hardcore players, and those who blow extra cash in the shop. That is what you are advocating?

The whole idea that everything should be presented to you on a silver plate is just beyond my reach. In-game luxury is similar for real-world concepts - they cultivates talent.
And cash shop is just an ability to get a missed opportunity and some of fancy items for those who wants fashion but not able to do it in-game due to various reasons. It doesn't provide a power of wealth as "real-money fancy items" are not the same as usual items used for displaying your wealth status (bluebird and nutkin are not on the list for cash shop)