IMO, the problem isn't the zone lines, it's that there's so little actual space to go. The world isn't very big. FFXI had zone lines and they were much more annoying than the ones in XIV (countless LS comments of "zone" so that people wouldn't miss part of a conversation, them were the days).

The problem is there aren't many zones, and once you get to the level cap you don't really go anywhere except major cities and Wineport. It stops being so big and becomes somewhat like a hub-and-instance game. I don't want to make everything open-world, but I would like to see more zones.