Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[polyphonica]

And the things that CAN be helped, someone somewhere has miscommunicated
with the team or again, "we can't because limitations". I'm still trying to find out
how we can't have more inventory space because limitations but magically can with purchasable retainers.

[...]

There's one thing where hardware is legit limiting things but it's another
when you Godang lie to us. You might as well tell us "you don't feel like it".

For this one, they actually said from the get-go that they could increase retainers, but it's the active inventory (that gets synced with the server constantly, including when you're in instances) that can't increase further. All the other things they've done since then, like Saddlebag and Glamour Plates, were done in a different way to bypass this limitation. It was basically their answer to the problem of not being able to expand active inventory further. (There was actually a detailed post by one of the lead engineers that explained this.)

The problem is, as you say though, unclear communication (which isn't helped by imperfect translation). They gave an answer about one specific thing, but it got interpreted as an answer about a very broad thing... and then when they come up with a different solution to address the broader problem, it's perceived as a lie. The more detailed/nuanced communications that fully explain it are either not translated or not noticed. This same pattern has repeated a number of times in the past and definitely makes things worse.