I disagree with your comments about treating housing as a priority over fixing the post-ARR questline and sorting crafting/gathering. No new player gets warned about the lack of housing opportunities when starting whereas I'd hazard a guess that many, if not most, get warned about the slog of the post-ARR section. Without people gathering and crafting, there would be no furniture on the marketboards for the precious housing. There would be no endgame food, potions or gear to enable people to do endgame battle content so fixing their problems should also be a priority over, and let's be honest, a vanity problem. Housing offers nothing to the progression of a player in this game and it's just something people get over-upset about because they haven't got access to it.

Your suggestion won't fix the problem. A lottery style roulette where you will actually be competing against many many more players for a plot will cause more problems as mathematically you will have much less of a chance to get the house. A gil compensation won't calm the anger that the players will feel because someone was luckier than them because aside from housing, there is very very little to spend gil on.

The real problem with housing is that the lack of a house locks far too many players out of gardening and workshop content. Housing should have only ever been for FC's only and players be given apartments that we can increase in size, customize (with a balcony or rear garden for exterior furniture for example) and consider private workshops with limited functionality such as a single airship/submarine. All apartments be accessible from a "major foyer" which would ultimately become a player hub for each zone.

So basically, I've just detailed what gets said on every thread of this kind and said give us instanced housing.