Back before there was flying and there was just "one giant map" there was a lot more actual exploring to be had. Especially seeing that Aetherytes were few and far between, so getting anywhere took a lot of work. You had to sneak around certain areas because the mobs in your way were extremely high level and would one shot you if you took a wrong step. Once the game added on ps3 capability it took on the burden of restricting a lot of its capabilities. This made the maps much smaller and easier to navigate because of said restrictions.

Once Flight became available it was exciting and people were exploring all the time so they could see the new maps and what they held for us. As time went on, people finished their quests and had no need for those zones anymore, minus gathering or leveling other jobs. It is kind of sad because aside from /GPOSE, Gathering and Leveling there really isn't much left to do in the open world... oh and maps and hunts. I really hope that the devs will figure out a way to make the open world more exciting again, but to be fair, this is kind of the way it goes in a lot of mmos once older areas are well past their prime. If flying and teleporting wasn't a thing and everyone had to run everywhere or take airships and boats, you would definitely see more people populating certain zones as they run through, but those same people would most likely creat a hub that was more centralized to the current content so you would be right back in the same situation.

I think that "Limited Jobs" like Beastmaster could be a fun way to make the over world relevant again, at least for a little while. But only time will tell.