I think one fear is that the decline in holiday rewards coincided with the release of the Mogstation item store. Few new items, but plenty of advertising for items from previous years. While I have my fingers crossed that this IS a result of 3.0 development, the holidays were one of my favorite things about FFXIV and I hope this isn't a sign of change for the future.

I know of other mmos that slacked off on events and claimed "we are putting more resources into the expansion", but after expansion release there were still no new holiday events.

The good news is that SE has continued to show creativity with the event ACTIVITIES. The winter veil activity required the player trees in housing wards, valentine's day was a hunt for npcs with only verbal clues, and ladies day was the first to utilize treasure maps AND community cooperation in completing the dolls. Nice creativity for activities, now they just need the same creativity for item rewards.