I think a grand majority of the problem as some have already mentioned lies within fear of a secondary failure and/or people being afraid it's going to be just another WoW clone. While I think those who are not extremely close minded have legitimate concerns, I also think most players really don't realize...

A. Only the earliest MMO's really have some originality to their design.

Which is fine and dandy, it's super hard to be original in this era where just about anyone can up and program their own game and publish it for the world to see. But part of FFXIV's problem is it tried so hard to be "different" it didn't try to use element's that were popular then reinvent them into something that would compliment FFXIV and help it succeed.

Then we have B.

B. SE is a business and low and behold as it is for me to say this they're interest is mainly focused on making money to keep the company afloat.

I know alot of folks want this game to be it's own thing and not some WoW clone or using a carbon copy system of some other MMO, but it's no secret that SE has been losing sales for the past seven something years now from a stream of spin-offs and sub-par games, really lacking any solid titles since Kingdom Hearts II. With that said, despite the want's of some of the playerbase SE is probably banking completely on the success of FFXIV:ARR and cannot afford to mess this up, so if it has to become more like Western and other modern MMO's out there in order to maximize players and succeed SE will do it.

I just hope they realize that originality doesn't always lead to success, but quality is definitely required for success.