Back to the OP's original question: The merit system from XI.

All 80s and nothing left to do? Grind yourself some bonus stats. An extra 1% bonus damage on certain actions or weapon skills, for example.

The merit system from XI would not require any asset changes - it would only require some damage calculation changes, some additional tables on the characters, and a few other programmatic changes in the game's service layers that don't actually require the art team, the lore team, etc. UI team would need to get involved for a menu change, and that's it.