I agree, and also it's part of what makes FFXI feel more immersive. Not on rails. (Oh no now I'm talking like Cait Sith)
Widescan for all jobs is definitely helpful in locating quest NPCs, and rather that quest icons floating over NPCs heads (ugly), I would welcome an active quest magical maps marker category. I realize this might be a difficult feature to implement however.
After playing FFXIV for months and coming back to XI, the things I appreciate immensely about XI is it's simplicity in certain regards. The lack of people jumping up and down for no reason in cities, lack of icons over virtually every NPCs head, really make Vana'diel feel like a more civilized, relaxing world to interact with.
On the otherhand, looking at my quest log, there must be hundreds of quests I started and haven't finished because I either didn't know I started them, don't have clear instructions in the log, or while out adventuring, completely pass by a random ??? that I might need to click on because it doesn't visually appear.
My 2 cents: No to floaty icons over npcs heads, yes to quest map markers, yes to labelling ???'s in the field either literally with "???" text or a sparkly glow like the Lost Articles in Ulbuka.