Why are you so up-in-arms about a feature that is not nearly as useful as it was in ffxi?
Because this kind of abuse of the system is PART OF THE REASON why it's not useful. Everyone's using it for storage, thus the odds of seeing a bazaar icon and someone actually having something to sell is very low. That's not how it should be.

Now, tell me how that bazaar system is better than using the Ward system.
It's not. but you can possibly sell more stuff by using your character bazaar (which is what it exists for) than by using your retainers alone. Plus, it can be handy to hang out in a popular destination (e.g. entrance to a raid, etc) selling things people might need, like food/potions/ammo/etc - places you can't put a retainer.