Grandfathering is not going to end. This we know for sure. Just like in law, a person is accountable for their actions under the law at the time, not the law of today. It was within the ToS for people to own multiple houses once upon a time. Hell, I did. My main who was a crafter/gatherer and could easily make items and decorate his home had a Small in The Mists. My second main ended up plotting with a friend to buy two mediums close to each other. We planned our routes, got ready, got up flipping eeeearly, and we both got the houses we wanted. Some time goes by, the friend leaves, and the medium house doesn't really get touched. It's after the change to housing and if I give up the medium house that character cannot get another, and I did buy USD outdoor items for her.

I decide to let that house go, reclaim what I could, and give the money to my main with the Small so he could relocate to a Medium. I had two houses and I gave one up because I wanted to move and because I didn't want to hold onto something I was doing nothing with. I have an apartment on the secondary main, and that is at least decorated now.

Honestly, when it comes to grandfathering we are just going to have to wait for people to get bored of keeping up with multiple houses, or for demolition to come back and people will inevitably leave, or forget to enter their house, or what-have-you. The present system isn't ideal at all, but we can be almost certain they will never chose to remove grandfathering and forcing people to give up something they were allowed to have when they got it. Arguing to remove grandfathering will ultimately be futile.

And, even though I really only back completely instanced housing/plots, it's likely that too will be futile. It's far more likely that they will just keep throwing bandaid over bandaid over bandaid until it's cost effective to host more wards through technological advance. Definitely not ideal, but also doesn't require any actual changes to the system. Just needs time.

It's also pretty much guaranteed that 6.0 will bring with it Ishgard housing, which will be a massive injection of available housing. Will it be enough for everyone to get a house somewhere that wants one? Who knows. We will have to see what the numbers look like after release. If they all fill up in a week then clearly we're as screwed then as we are now and SE will probably cry into their hands and curse housing and what they did with it.

Based on the fact that all of 5.X has this story about rebuilding an Ishgard housing district, the chances of them even considering a change to the system in any significant way is basically abysmal. I think, even if they were considering changes, or even additions, to housing, that they are not going to do anything until the Ishgard housing release and seeing where the number are at that point. Hell, maybe they will released instanced plots as an apartment+ option along with 6.0. Who knows.

But if we want to be at all productive with the housing as we have it now, I do think the focus needs to be on things we see within the existing system; FC ownership loophole, alts getting access to house owned by main on the server, priority preference to FC versus personal ownership, relocation, timer, etc. Based on the roadmap for housing that we can gleam from plot and what announcements we get, arguing about other factors seems to be a needless strain on emotions and energy.