I dont understand the reason people seek difficulty in things that dont need to be difficult.
The reason people remember that trip to jeuno is because it sucked. The mobs were too strong for the player who needed to make that trip.
Im aware the world is relatively small, but we have quite a bit of solid content to begin with. Much of the content is competently difficult, so talk of things needing to be harder is just a joke...for now. If you want hard, turn 5 of the coil is waiting on you.

That LARGER world went mostly unused by the majority. Is this just nostalgia speaking? because i went into shroposhae, copperbell and mistbeard cove you would be lucky if there were more than 3 people in there at any given time. The world was huge and empty before and those non-instanced zones were done away with because they were a waste.
Think back to 1.0, how much of the black shroud did you actually use and how much was travel time for the sake of wasting your time?