The thing is that this isn't adding nothing to the game...they are discarding what came before, putting an old system on the table and saying "Eat it!". I had similar experiences in some table games (like pokemon TCG or Mage Knight) where they used a similar approach and, while pokemon still kept some players due the collecting purposes, mage knight ended cancelled a bit after due massive ragequit.

Its like i said...i'm not against the idea...i just don't think the way they are using it is the correct for FFXIV. I think class restriction is nice since its focused on that specific class, i think race specific armor is nice, gender specific armor is nice...everything is perfectly usable...but not they way they did. If the game already offers the option of making armors usable by any class but adding penalty if you equip an armor that not favors your class, why not use it? I already suggested them to just remove any secundary effect and damage cut effect if the class isn't favored, making these armors just "common" except to favored classes...this would be a nice approach for these armors...you protect the unique system the game has and still restrict the equipment usage to the classes you want since no one would go for serious fight with not favored gear.

What they did, by restricting the equipments to certain classes, can be compared to surplus...Instead of letting the player decide what to equip they are forcing you to use a certain class for this...whoever, if you compare it to surplus it would be, when it triggers you just stop receiving SP/XP, being forced to change class right away.

About items being crafted, even if they gonna add more features involving DoH, i can't see why not letting them craft these items. If they want to keep things like this they could remove the common drops and make drop the item material instead...this way the player can obtain the NQ version of the item from NM or try his luck with material hoping for an HQ version of it.

But, of course, its my point of view.