Have you thought that it was intential... that they wanted you to move around the world in a certain way?

Looks like the other picture you have is Rift and if that is the case... yea you could climb mountians to a degree or sometimes completely... but there was no reason to do it other than just to say you did. Also in Rift it was entirely possibly to get into situations that were inescapable besides just teleporting out. So I really don't see what you are missing other than complaining that you can't take a shortcut to bypass content.