Pretty good discussion here on seasons and even some good ideas for implementation:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=environmental

I'm indifferent about point #1, but for #3, I definitely want to see some boat routes for fishing. For airship routes, they would need to add some kind of content that you participate in while on the ride for me to not just mash ESC and skip to getting to the next town. Seeing the underlying landscape the first few times would be nice, but after that it just becomes a time to go AFK to use the bathroom or something.