Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[Penthea]

Complaints far exceed textures—there are complaints for more character creation options, more housing, instanced housing on top of ward housing, better glamour system options (a proper Glamour Log), interactive housing item culling, character load culling, better battle content in general... the list goes on. It far exceeds just textures, and a lot of the other complaints I’ve seen have their own merits.

I really think upgraded textures are and should be way down the list of their priorities because they're technically not content (you can't really interact with them), and it's certainly not something everyone can enjoy. Whereas everyone can enjoy a more updated glamour log, more character creation options, combat content, etc.

Not saying I don't want the game to be prettier, it would be nice if it was...but I'd much rather have more things to do than have an unneeded graphics update that only some players could experience.

[Vhailor]

The crap coded base of the game that prevents those QoL advancements is the same reason we can't have cooler content like more dynamic dungeons and fort-sieges type of content.
The game can't even handle a darn FATE with more than 40 people around and game engine can't even handle showing those PC/NPCs and starts culling them despite us having the hardware to do so.
For an MMORPG this game can't handle the MMO side of things and this is the big irony.
It bottlenecks itself. They never fixed that and they will probably never will.
Aside those tech limitations it's their management as well. They are scared to allocate more recourses to XIV development.
So they stick to the formula that works and they do not move an inch away from it. To be fair though this formula kinda works as XIV is healthy and has steady population.
The only issue with that is that it prevents the game to further grow and evolve.
But if you wanna be successful you must never settle down and relax. You must always look how to improve and advance.

Fair points, but I honestly think there's more at play here than just the bad underlying engine. I mean, FFXI had more limitations, and managed to have much more varied and longer-lived content. A lot of this goes back to design decisions, rather than technical limitations. I mean, Besieged work in FFXI, despite a similar inability to see more than 40 people around at once; Campaign worked. For that matter, Hamlet Defense worked in FFXIV 1.x as well. There are options here.

I feel like the bigger barrier is SE's design strategy. This isn't a situation they can't design around; it's one they don't want to design around. In my estimation, anyway.

I really think upgraded textures are and should be way down the list of their priorities because they're technically not content (you can't really interact with them), and it's certainly not something everyone can enjoy. Whereas everyone can enjoy a more updated glamour log, more character creation options, combat content, etc.

Not saying I don't want the game to be prettier, it would be nice if it was...but I'd much rather have more things to do than have an unneeded graphics update that only some players could experience.

I'd tend to agree with this. FFXIV's visuals are going to age. So long as the visuals of the game aren't 75% of its appeal (which I'd say they currently are, given that Glamour is the true end-game...), this isn't a massive problem. It's something SE can fix via better design decisions for content.