Well I think you'd certainly have players still using repair items, especially with the new death penalties in place. If you're out in the field and your equipment goes yellow or red you'r not going to be running back to town to repair it, you'll get someone out there to do it. However if you know you're making a trip back to town anyway you can always just do it there too.

But yes in general, more reasonable gil sinks would help with the problem of having mountains of gil. Hopefully airships and chocobos, once introduced, will help take some of the gil out of the system.