They have said that they split the zones up to make it so the game is more widely accessible. If you look at the min PC requirements for 1.0 vs 2.0, you can see that they made it so.

BUT ... with that being said, in their original road map, they had the PS3 release 100%, it wasn't until sales and subs did not meet their projected sales goals that they scrapped the PS3 version.

I played XI on PS2 for 6-7 years and those zones were HUGE, from zone edge to edge you probably spent 15-20minutes running or 5 + minutes on Chocobo. The graphics, obviously, as it is a 12 year old game, were not as nice.

I bring this up in every post regarding current state of the game, Give them time to grow. The game has just released. I urge you all to look at what WoW had available to do in its 4th month after release. Go look at FFXI in its first 4 Months. Hell, go look at Diablo3 going on 2 years after release(even though its not technically a MMO)