Never said it was something that's going to keep you out there forever. 15 Jobs to get you out and about. MSQ updates repeatedly over the course of the expansion. Saying that once you're through the only reason you ever go out is for hunts is a lie, that's all I was getting at. People just don't do them for whatever reason they feel like saying.
You're not going to convince most people in this game to go find random little balls of light with no assistance. Not unless you tie the best possible gear to it or make it the best way to level. All you'll get for that is people complaining that it's not content, that it's boring.You know in Rift you can gather artifacts that are lying all over the landscapes as small balls of light. Some are next to a path, some others are behind items, some are far off the path and much more. Its fun to explore the whole map to get these and they are not so easy to find since there are no hints where they are. (One could buy an ability that shows them for 30 minutes for real money but you are not forced to use that) Also you can stumble over a riddle in each zone which must be solved differently and grants you a chest with a nice price. At the same time you are able to find books from time to time in NPCs houses or in the zone, which you can take with you. They will tell you about the lore of the game, something that is quite lacking in a story driven game like FF14. You know instead of having all the lore information in a real life book, they could have been included as ingame books too which could be read in the game. This would have been another way to use the zones.
The only thing that is even near something like that in FF14 is the sightseeing log and that was made way easier since HW.