The stat points could also be a cheap way to add to some stats such as HP without having to go through the expensive process of gathering gear and materia again. supposing they allow for respeccing.
I was mostly thinking that this system is a sort of fail-safe if they ever did end up going F2P (god i hope not). A lot of F2P MMOs use stat allocation systems like this to forces characters to spend money if they wish to reset their points.
Edited, Jun 25th 2013 6:13pm by DamienSScott