Personally I would be 100 percent with Construction being a money sink little to no practical use in the RS gold game.Let people move the furniture around and create a house. If we're afforded the option at least to be liberated and enjoy it as a home then I think that are a happy medium. You gotta give it usage or performance because as it stands it's a waste of money and I just leveled it for to Prif. And having the ability to sit down in a seat is your answer to this?

RuneScape as a Means to add functionality

I believe Higgs was focusing on modifications that flip the houses into more of an RP concentrated area as opposed to a service centre. And something more such as a Player Owned Barracks or base camp might be a fantastic alternative to add support functionality.

I think they're more considering it as a way to add functionality without it being drastically different concerning training and it's influence on external aspects of the game. Much like adding RP performance, than traditional support/artisan skill functionality. By making them a place to socialize/facilitate gatherings or something, sort of like a standard house.

So I can sort of see where they are coming from, due to the character of a'house' being what it is IRL, the appearing overwhelming desire of the playerbase is to make the POH into more of a Player possessed base camp or Barracks, a place to go to create prepping for other activities faster/easier for some player. Apart from what current POH's have.

Which the notion of a Player owned barracks/base camp/village may be something cool to amuse for a rework. A larger scale area to train construction, beginning with buy old school runescape gold your residence, then continuing on to a settlement for NPC's who could then become employees of some sort that produce choices for passive XP profit like POF mixed with miscellania. Higher your level the different typed of functional buildings that your camp may possess, by a smith to substitute the armor rack, to a bank, or a mage to get tele's etc.. Where you'd have to provide materials because of their functionalities to operate, in addition to a Base quantity of stuff and a foundation level to produce the construction that those NPC's would operate in anyways. Together with the option to organize them in a way that suits the players liking, where combat support function NPCs could be closer to the home tele place for access. And other npc's may be farther. Obvi I'm literally just spewing ideas with little without thinking prior, so it might be incredibly flawed but I feel it might be a start of something to consider.