While I did enjoy leveling in Eureka, I would grant that it probably wasn't the 'leveling' part of it so much as the progression side of it. And I probably enjoyed Anemos leveling more than the other three zones since it was the first instance of it, while the next three probably felt more like to-do lists since we'd already 'been there, done that'. I do think there could be some really interesting ways they could achieve that w/o it being leveling per se. This may not be what you're looking for, but they could focus the progression on something like a magia board that you're building/rebuilding and/or focus on building the armor/weapons particular to this content from the beginning rather than relegating it to the end once you've finished the leveling portion. Overall, I think I enjoy a sense of progression of working through a zone and it's content as well as getting more powerful throughout that progression however its achieved (levels and/or equipment and/or content specific mechanics like magia board).

On the other point, I think it could be really cool to see exploration of more lands we've touched on but not delved into deeply yet. There's so much they could do with so many different places.