I can agree with some ideas, but he believes in Themepark style (which there's honestly nothing wrong with this.) Housing, much like even XI on the base level would no doubt be customizable to your liking, this is exactly why they're pushing back things like this so they can give us the features in a better way.

The mog house was pretty customizable in a sandbox environment, but given technology limitation (2000 console) they could only do so much, with no limitations of that nature (PC base development) they can do a lot more even while keeping in mind the PS3, so the 'sandbox' aspect will be around in various ways, but the MMO itself won't become a sandbox.