I actually prefer the idea of instanced housing over landscape for a lot of the same reasons mentioned in the OP. When popularity in MMOs fluctuates, what you end up with in landscape games are ghost towns. Worse yet, when a game spikes in popularity you end up with vastly overbuilt or overdeveloped areas that do not aesthetically mesh with the rest of the environment. A good example of this would be the recently released Archeage: Unchained. After launch week, the devs unlocked housing and it was a total gold rush to place buildings in the best possible spots. Real estate becomes a meta market that finds a third-party platform to operate off of, and it usually results in foreign game currency hoarding groups moving in and ruining the experience for legitimate players.
I know that no matter what Gorgon's devs end up doing with housing, it's going to be better than most other games because they'll have implemented their creative take on a traditional RPG to it. I'm going to enjoy this either way, because I enjoy Gorgon for what it is at its core.