If anything, it may gobble up some art asset time for furnishings and such, but aside from adding all the Hingan stuff with Shirogane going live, they don't necessarily add massive piles of furniture with each patch. I do like that they add furnishings tied to combat, like the Shinryu wing pic, Titan lamp, Shiva chandilier, etc.
I'd go so far to say if anything is dragging things down right now, it's whatever they're working on in terms of long term solution(s) to glamour. I don't mean that in a negative manner, mind you; I'm a pretty big glam whore here, although it pales to what I had in WoW, where I had virtually every tier set for my shaman stuck away on in my bank (where they still reside, since I haven't logged into WoW since the transmog closet or whatever it's called was added). Ultimate level encounters won't gobble up much dev time, since it looks like they will use art assets that already exist, so it's design and tuning there.
Housing is something that can be added that can keep people of all skill levels occupied. Given some of the housing setups I've seen so-called in-game interior decorators post on Reddit and elsewhere, there's a smidge of skill involved there, in a way. Not the same skill set one needs for raiding, obviously, but some of the stuff people have put together make me ask "why am I such an uncreative dimwit?", but perhaps that's merely a personal problem/deficiency of mine.