The world feels too small.

[Naunet]

Well my reference MMOs include WoW, Warhammer Online, Rift, Aion, TERA, GW1, GW2, and Neverwinter. I don't know what MMOs you're playing with zones bigger than FFXIV, but they're almost certainly niche games with little influence on the market.

You... actually think XIV's zones are bigger than WoW, Rift, Aion, TERA, and GW2? Those are the MMOs I was referring to, by the way.

The world seems plenty big enough to me. How much more time do I have to spend just to get from the Waking Sands to Ul'Dah? It is 3 minutes by Chocobo porter. It is easily double that to run with sprints mixed in. And you haven't even gone all that far. I think player will start to get annoyed if takes 10 minutes to just go between places to do their main quest.

Aetherytes do exist.