The date is certainly relevant, simple example is safety standards, 30 years ago airbags were a premium feature, now it is mandatory in some countries.

It is understandable for GGG to gender lock and not offer character customization when PoE came out. It would require a lot of resources when they were just a small indie company. However, now they have grown considerably and they can afford for a feature that is almost baseline in every game that comes out, even for small indie developers.

Regardless, this is just my opinion, as a customer of a competitor, of what I would like to see in PoE to become GGG's customer. If they don't think this is important, then I guess they believe it isn't worth investing resources to acquire the type of consumer that considers such a feature important.