The areas designed to be that huge in order to house and justify one of the key elements and one of the most advertised feature, Flying. That's the reason we got that huge areas. SE decided to go with the safe route in budget with FFXIV ARR after 1.0 huge flop. They lost crazy amount of money and they decided to scale down the game. This is why on some elements game got degraded in comparison with 1.0. For example graphics. While lighting and shadows are improved texture resolution and quality along with grass and plants look so cheap and 2004ish. Bushes are 2-3 cards and textures are horrible when you look at them for a relatively close proximity like in cutscenes. Still game looks better but it's obvious they do everything with limited personnel and budget. They already explained and admitted that. Dev team is focused on frequently patching the game with fresh content in order to keep players and attract more.