i think that anet can do much with that idea like:
make the player able to advance in his race socity for exampal:
a norn player that choose a sprit at the start of the game will be able to be a shaman to that spirit and so on and when we advance in that why he will get Benefits like a better housing or something like that you can even add skills for him and such
or you can make the housing more personal and desineable.
and after all of this you can make the idea of a thingy to the house like the candycorn ore and the quartz ore a ordinary thing and with that you make the housing more loveable and give a prograss feeling to old players that have a awsome house full with Monuments for what they did in the living story metas (you can add WvW and PvP tropheys to there too)
if my english sucks im sorry its not my native Language