I get that SE wants to foster "community" and that a lot of the playerbase does in fact enjoy this, but I think it could have been done a lot better.

I think a win win would be to keep the wards as is, but also institute a solo instanced version of a house (Like Rift and SWToR have...and I am sure there are many others). I would love to be able to buy a house for my FC/self of any size I want so that I can get the benefit of gardening and non cluttered decorating. It hurts no-one as if you want to showcase your home then you can hope to the RNG that you win a house in the "shared" wards, but if you are cursed with bad luck then you can still enjoy a feature of the game that SE very poorly thought out.