Quote Originally Posted by linayar View Post
The benefit of the ward is to be able to see the individual outside decorations just by passing through.
How many players bother to take the time to do that much as opposed to just porting directly to their house or their friend's house and ignoring the rest of the ward?

You don't have to have a ward setting to see what other players have done with their house. Other MMOs with housing have a variety of way for you to find and visit other player's properties (assuming they had enabled guest access). I used to go randomly cruising around RIFT Dimensions to see what other players had done and get ideas for my own and that was 100% instanced.