I'm up for open field parties, but unless it was substantially more convenient than FFXI's way of doing things, I'd prefer that the devs continue to focus on beastmen camps and instanced dungeons as the future for SP. Something about standing around doing nothing for hours just to get a group together to go stand around repeating the same thing for hours doesn't appeal to me like it used to.

At least these quest hubs and raids have some small semblance of variety.

If they could find a way to quickly throw together a group when you wanted to and have easy access to get out to a location and grind a bit, I'd be all for it. Something tells me, however, that might be what they're aiming for with the aforementioned beastmen camps.