We should be afforded much more customization with our houses. In particular, we should be able to place them within the plot as we so choose, just like a piece of furniture.

I also second the comments about SE needing to get off their arses in regards to item limits. Isn't this part of why PS3 support was removed? At the very least, if they aren't going to eliminate item limits, I'd like to see more features available for the houses. As an example, simply placing some organic-looking rocks and trees around the edges of my house currently eats up about 1/3 of the available items. That's ridiculous. Let me have some base 'landscape' settings for the house. Let me place groves of trees at once, so that a half-dozen with some plants around the base counts as a single item, not a half dozen or more.

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One more comment. I'm sure there are likely to be people who read this, and think 'gosh, that's a bit harsh, we should be more forgiving of SE.' Generally, I'd agree with that sentiment, too. The reason I don't in this case is that the entire Housing system has been mismanaged from the very beginning. SE set down a path to build neighborhoods instead of individual house instances, and we've been paying for it ever since. We pay for it in terms of lack of availability; we pay for it (literally) in the form of a demolition timer; we pay for it in terms of limited exterior customization options (no add-on wings or the like); we pay for it in terms of limited outdoor furniture. All of these limitations can be laid squarely at the feet of SE's decision to build an in-game system that their infrastructure couldn't properly support.

SE's arrogance in this regard cannot be overstated. That's why I have very little sympathy for them when it comes to player criticism of the Housing system. They created this mess by biting off more than they could chew, and then doubling-down and refusing to go a different way. It's on them to do as much as they can to mitigate the downsides for players.