In this case, exploration is a big part of content. You gather resources and advance your crafts so you can actually craft very good armours, weapons, jewellery, consumables etc, so you don't have to run dungeons or group content if you don't want to; not to mention that you get XP out of gathering and crafting. By doing this, you can be self-sufficient (because you are not limited to how many crafts you can have), make potentially loads of money at the trading post, buy yourself a nice house, furnish it... etc, if that's what you're into. It's supposed to be a player driven economy but we'll have to wait and see how that turns out.
Also housing is done a bit different than in FF for example. Here you don't have to wait for a house to become available, you only need to have the money to buy it. The player housing is instanced but the nicest house in that particular town will be the one being displayed and everyone can see it.
"The only thing in NW that actually has some value is furniture." - this is your point of view, ofc course.
FFXIV does many things right, I don't think anyone can argue against that but you can't really compare it with NW, they are very different games.
From my POV, if you replace all the characters in FFXIV with western-type ones, rename everything in game to something non-ridiculous like most of it is, it's an amazing game!
I grew up with a different mentality, in a society where catgirls, bunny-boys and lallafel were/are a definite no-no. But again, that's just me and I'm sure millions of other people, especially the younger generation don't feel the same way... and that's completely fine.