To be honest, I made a point on playing on beta servers during their "regional" peak times purposefully this past weekend. Both data centers performed equally well and the only small lag I did experience was on a server on the data center nearest to me and even then it was minimal.

Everything is a choice, its just that some are more easily affected by labels than others.

Am I frustrated with SE for how they handled this... yes, but realistically only because I realize how easily "influenced" some are by labels, and I wish they would have taken that a little more into account with their choice of words used to label.

Is it really SE's fault though?... No, because they've said over and over that they aren't segregating, they are merely providing data centers in order to be competitive with other MMO's and give their players the chance to have a better experience if they had issues before.

My LS is weighing options still, but personally I am not scared to remain on a JP based server that I've been playing on for over 2 years if that ends up being their choice. I will follow my LS because they are a big part of what makes the game for me enjoyable, but I don't feel my level of success in game is going to be dependent on anything aside from my own personal drive.

I've talked with other NA/EU LS's on Masamune during this process and while 2 that I've talked to are leaving, 4 are remaining, so it definitely is a choice. You are free to play where you wish, the label only really means the locality of the server, it's people that make it mean more than what was actually intended.