Flying through the zones is perfectly fine. But navigating them on ground is just terrible, because developers made those zones all twisted up and filled them with differences in height, and added gaps all over the place that need to be circumvented. It feels like they made them like this with flying in mind, since once you can lift off the ground, you can fly over every single annoying obstacle anyways.
ARR-Zones are way more accessible for the most part, and I wish they would design future areas more like them. The Azim Steppe is a perfect example of good zone design in my eyes, empty as it may be, because I dislike taking detours around obstacles like mountains, even though this resembles reality. I'd love to see human-made optional shortcuts through them, like bridges, tunnels or stairs. But since you'll be flying anyways developers don't even bother.
