I see zero issue with instanced housing. As suggested u go to the plaque to bring up a list of the plots occupants and go inside. There is little to no community/neighbourhood feel in the wards as it is. Many of the large/med plots are being kept by players who arent even actively playing. They jus dont wanna lose the house so pop in now and again. If you have 10 FC's in one large mansion plot BOY are you gonna meet a lot of new people and actually feel like you have neighbours about!
Have a random house load in on each plot to keep things looking unique.

I would still say I'm a newer player, I'm newer still to housing even. And the struggle to buy my first small plot was horrendous. I only got my first one out of sheer luck waking up early one morning. Housing is a feature I really enjoy and it's part of what made me sub and buy the game, so finding out how rare and difficult it is to buy a large plot was really disheartening for me. Now before the 5.1 maint I lucked out and found a large plot free and moved to it. Hurray for me! But I have no intention of losing that plot. It's gonna be another that's locked down for a LONG time. And it's just not nice to know that while there are so many who would like this kind of house and can afford it cannot get it.

There is no issue with instanced housing this idea that it will kill a community seems absurd to me and the only other reason against I have heard was from my FC leader, "I want people to look at our FC house and say damn I wish I had that" It's pure selfishness.

SE could monetize housing pretty well if they tried, my old guild members from another game spent A LOT of rl money on housing items. They would happily buy all that mog station furniture they wanted, then ofc be paying a sub and buying the expansions. Make a lot of items, have em be cheap enough u can buy enough for ur large plot and all those tiny purchases will add up quick across so many players. So long as they kept new furniture availible in game first then adding to mog station later I see no issue with it.