I also think part of the problem is that people fail to realize that there is a difference between "concept" and "execution". Chocobo racing is a concept, In XI you watched and hoped for your bird to win with the stats you raised him with, that was their execution, but if you made it so that players rode their chocobos in races the execution is completely different.

I mean just look at pet systems in MMOs, they have become a staple for many MMOs and yet no one cries "CLONE!" if they see it because pet systems have a million different executions.