This is just pure speculation but... what if ships were implemented in a way to "discover" areas revealed by the influence of Dalamud. The thing is, how do you integrate a ship system into XIV and make it interesting. In XI Selbina-Mhaura offered pirate fights as well as an NM which would pwn any low levels that aggroed it lol. Then the ship from Whitegate-Nashmaru had 2 NMs, one that would spawn pretty frequently and another with a mysterious spawn condition. So with the above they gave people a reason to travel rather then using shortcuts.

When it comes to 14 the shit we have atm is easily neglected cause of it's 15 min ride which offers no sense of danger or a single mob spawning on the top deck.

I feel like it would be interesting in perhaps areas which could be discovered would rotate at random variables, when you find a place it stays discovered for you for 1 week and you are able to let others travel there as long as you have the occupancy for it. Perhaps your ship travel will lead you to a town that reminds one of "Mysidia" from there you can learn about and open up the quest line for Meteor and Ultima. Another place you could discover is a place like "Mist Town" which you need to discover in order to work on obtaining the summon Mist Dragon. Another area which you could discover from traveling on boat is a place like the Ancient Library which could act as a hub which gives you hints as to the location of all the known "hidden" areas if you are able to defeat the mob inside the book that is protecting the information.

I just honestly don't see how else they could make ships "interesting" unless they integrate them in such a way that one is able to discover knew locations and if their ship allows it allow others to ride their ship to the place they discovered. I feel like ship building/sailing has a lot of potential, i'd be curious to know what Tanaka's vision on it was but I honestly believe the concept of sailing could work on Yoshida's vision to make this game a homage of FF taking the previous concept of other FF titles and making it apart of 14 so that players are able to enjoy those experiences in a group rather then a single player environment.