Sorry for being abit off topic! But when i started reading this thread i thought it was going in a different direction.

When you said citys would not be remade, and you talked about Aetheryte plazas. I started immagine how there was small plazas/towns outsides citys, much like our Aetheryte camps we have now, but alittle bit bigger.

They where very beautiful to look at, and they had NPCs walking around, doing their thing, a kid playing with a ball.
A guy in the corner who liked to gamble. A carpenter working a roof. A shepperd doing his thing.

There was a Inn with a bar, and in the middle of it there was a Aetherite, much like the picture you had. Here you could retrieve generic quests, not as rewarding nor as fun as the rest of the quests, that you would find from the town NPCs. But you could do them quick when you had little time.

The NPCs of these towns/plazas would need help with various stuff, bigger stuff, harder stuff. Like killing the beast who is roaming up in the mountain near the town.

//wakes up from day dreaming