If you have ever worked or known someone in higher managment positions you know how amazingly slow the bearaucracy of "changes" actually happen. It might seem sudden when some-day the computer guys ram in your store and change all the machines into alien technology without you being the wiser.

Chances are it's been started 5 years ago and someone finally got around to making something actually happen. It's a ftal flaw in almost all corperations, thankfully the developers for FFXIV don't have as much tape to cut through but some hoops do still need to be jumped.

Otherwise I'm sure we would have Yoshi-P twitering dev updates every couple of hours, he seems the kind of person who just wants to scream what he is doing to the world but he is obviously being held on by a corperate leash.