The idea of introducing real life "cultural diversity" into fantasy world sickens me!
We all share Eorzea world, laws, culture, awesome cloth design and weapons not available (yet) in the real world.

The idea of regional servers is purely technical.
I would not dispute neither would I agree with arguments against it from a cultural or business point of view.
I take my hat off for "CCP" - "EVE-online" MMO creator. They have a server cluster in a single location. The structure is very expensive, unique and took 10 years to perfect.
I heard of no one following their steps on that scale: 60K+ users logged to the same server at the same time.

Anyway, just want to say: "I'd like to logon to the server near me rather then the one in JP and enjoy the game having less than 200ms latency"

How about you, dear Eorzeans?