As a developer currently working on a large scale data logistics application, I am aware of the enormity of the request that I am making, but I think it would be an enormous boon to 3rd party developers (a community that has a lot of resources and skills ready and willing to be lent to the betterment of FFXIV) if the Lodestone were to expose a RESTful service for the data currently available there.

I am not asking for more transparency - though on second thought, I certainly wouldn't say no to it - merely a programmatically viable way to access the data. As a use case, I am currently writing a website for internal use for my Free Company, and I would love to be able to populate everyone's available jobs for Raid scheduling purposes. This is data readily available on the Lodestone in text form, but I would rather not - and indeed would not - parse the text out to capture that information (largely for stability reasons).

A RESTful JSON - sigh or I suppose SOAP if you must - interface would go a long way to encourage 3rd party developers to stretch their wings and make interesting and useful applications to support the community.