The only way I could imagine it being less an issue.. While not playing in the hands of RMT and alts (with or without fake fc's) and not having to press buttons for 12hrs would be a non static ward situation.
Imagine a dynamic ward, lots of players are inactive at times because the actual owner of a plot is offline or unsubbed. The plot could be used by somebody else, a non permanent resident in a dynamic ward. The advantages? Everyone can buy a house, they would be cheaper, they are all small, you keep them forever until you can upgrade to a permanent one which costs more gil or if you want to upgrade to medium or large. The moment they login their house loads in on a plot of an offline user, whatever is available.

The server issues devs complain about are because many different wards exist at the same time for everyone at all times. It wouldn't be an issue if plot data is just in a database saved, and only specific is displayed on demand. The server load is still the same.

Lots of wards are dead, because players are just inactive, which is normal, I think nobody would mind temporary neighbours till they logout, then the permanent owner appears again even if offline. Optionally you would have the option to allow your plot to be made temporary if you are logged out and you receive a very small fee from the other player for using it.

And I know this will never get implemented because SE likes us to press the same buttons for hours just too much.

But in general its a difficult problem, if they make it too fair it will get abused. Too random and it will get abused too. Current system still should change, its unhealthy for some.