The forums are more miss than hit. There are only a few OP gems in a sea of opinion threads that are regarded as fact. There is a huge misconception that players actually think they are contributing a large amount to the direction of FFXIV, but on the contrary they are just using this as a means to communicate better with the community.

And in those small instances find a very intelligent and thought out suggestion that they could see fitting in with their development plans. I think that player suggestion is rarely taken into account because it's easy to see if the topic is merely a subjective issue or an actual major problem.