Saw this just now, though it is an old article:

FFXIV Viera Race concept art

While I could see why Au'ra were favored over Viera for this particular expansion since the main storyline is all about the Dragons of Ishgard, who's to say that the idea is completely scrapped right now? It would be awesome to see them introduced as children of either the dense woods of the Black Shroud, or a new forest. Even though they show a male Viera already in the concept art, I would probably take it a step further in differing it from the other races. This can happen one of two ways:
  • You create FFXIV's first "round" character, making them about the height of a Female Au'ra and as burly as a Roegaedyn.
  • Otherwise, you have the character hunch his back to create a more distinct sillhouette. This model would still be "shorter" than the female model
I feel it would be extremely important to make the males smaller than the females due to the matriarchal society. This would also make the race differ from the status quo of the others which consist of males generally being taller or close enough to where it doesn't matter. In all, this class still feels like it could potentially fit right in to the FFXIV universe (You wouldn't have to make it fit like you did with Au'ra), and is still in pretty high demand amongst players. Even if we don't see them during the next expansion, here's hoping that they'll eventually be released.