I'd consider it to be a matter of balance, personally. I don't expect each and every thread to be graced with a response, no matter how popular the thread in question may prove to be...but it does feel as if the game has become a lot more clinical of late which has coincided with the game's rising popularity.
I've been lucky enough to be able to dine at some of the most popular and most prestigious restaurants across Europe. Amongst the most memorable experiences were those with a personal touch. Where, no matter how busy the kitchen may have been, efforts were made to make every customer feel welcome and looked after.
I certainly wouldn't expect the development team themselves to comment directly on threads here - but equally, I do not believe for a second that it is too big of an expectation for someone hired on their behalf to do as much. Even a neutral response to popular threads confirming that feedback has been gathered, translated and fed back to the development team would be very welcomed.
Perhaps it might prevent situations where, for years, people requested more facial hair options for male characters...only for Yoshi-P to express surprise when told in an interview that people were asking for it.
If we take that at face value, it means that the development team were made aware of far more niche requests such as the removal of gender locked gear...but not the people patiently and politely asking for more customisation options for male characters which, in itself, is not a small number.
Now, I'm reluctant to suggest that whoever was hired to gather feedback isn't doing their job but once again I would like to make it clear that there are a decent number of constructive posters to be found here that cannot be found on Twitter. Therefore, only looking at Twitter serves to skew the game's development in favour of 'issues' that a sizeable portion of the FFXIV community do not concern themselves with.