There's a point where perceived quality or life, or convenience changes end up taking away from the game, not give to it. Why have big open world zones if you never actually need to travel. I thought the point of far off places was, you know, that they're far off and as such you need to put in some travel time to get there.

What you're describing is a community/overcrowding issue, which sucks, but the fix isn't to make travel meaningless, and large zones feel small.