I greatly prefer instances. I don't like competing for camps, farming, etc. All that does is lowers the chance that I get the item I want, especially if I happen to lag for a moment. I also don't like waiting around in town to see a shout - much prefer to join a queue by myself or with friends and then enter the instance and start the fun in under 10 minutes as opposed to nearly an hour.

Although at this point we also have to remember that originally even FFXI was mostly instances (BCNMs) at the start, then came the open-world content like sky and sea which brought a lot of competition, claimbots etc.

I feel instances would get rid of a lot of the frustrations that open-world content brings. Healthy competition is all well and good but I'd personally rather working together with a team to get a reward (or chance of a reward) and leave it in the hands of luck instead of whose PC is faster or whose bot is better programmed.