I would argue that the free to play model is designed specifically around their cash shop items, so it would make more sense to place exacting focus on said items to make sure anyone willing to spend the $ has maximum exposure to everything the cash shop has to offer.
In Final Fantasy XIV; none of the items in the cash shop are in any way a primary feature of the game. You can argue that different people play this game for different reasons, and have their own views as to what aspects of the game are primary to them; but that doesn't supersede the primary focus of the game's developers or publisher (While both are technically SE in this case, Yoshi-P and his team don't have 100% influence over all aspects of the game, including the cash shop).