But how long will "exploration" retain players? It's not like there won't be fun and interesting things to ride out and see. The whole point of the map redesign is to make each zone look unique and give them landmarks. But how much is enough to make people happy? Exploration is great fun, but once you've seen something the first time there's little reason to go back without some reward involved.
This is why you implement a system where you force people to venture to these areas. It is that simple. If exploration is such a short-lived experience, why not just remove all areas completely? Make one big city and players will simply queue up for the dungeon they need to visit. This is what you're defending, am I wrong?
You are defending instanced-dungeons by pointing out negative features found in FFXI. Finding groups is up to the community. The medium they utilize is up to the developers.