IMO most of the point of owning a castle isn't about it's size.... or looks.... it's about it's lockdowns. If I could acquire a home that was smaller like 24x24 customizable with the same lockdowns as a castle or keep I'd do so.
I mean lets look a things in this way I'll try to break it down for you. Back when UO began everyone wore the basics. You had armor, either leather or metal... all the same metal no problems... all leather was leather ..... otherwise you wore cloth.
You had maybe 4 or 5 weapons, a mage had one spellbook... you needed only 8 reagents.
Then somewhere along the line some DEV got the bright idea that we should have different metals... So now a crafter had to add in new metals, add 8 more lockdowns no problem. Then stone came mining up stone and adding more items.
Well then AoS came along and the item nightmare began... starting with 3 new leathers, BODs came along adding literally thousands of items to the storage woes of the lands. Then you add all the new stealables, Doom and Artifacts, 100's of new craftables,....... Then ML, now you have ML ingredients, all new armors, more craftables, more loot... and in all that some sick Genius on the DEV team gives us Recipes! Yet more storage needed! . SE more craftables, more stealables more loot, more artifacts... Then we reached rather a plateau.... but lets not forget that all this time we are getting gifts, gifts for Christmas, the Anniversary, Valentines, and stuff for Halloween!....
Stuff, stuffing adding more and more stuff piling up something needs to be done...
And then some DEV gets the bright idea we need yet another crafting skill and on dawns SA with Imbuing adding over 100 new things you have to collect and store to craft... new armor new weapons for a whole new race....
And if that weren't enough to add to our already stressed storage they give us High Seas! Adding dozens of new fish, bait, barnacle covered stuff and more items than ever.....
And they wonder WHY we are so demanding about space????
No one who even thinks about crafting could make life out of a 7x7 plot anymore. You'd need to have 39 characters with bank space..... just for the crap needed to craft anymore.
Not even talking about what to do with all the lovely non-stacking gifts they give us year after year.