i like the wards system.
about the names in AH, SE can allways add a name tag to the retainers shop so you can see who the retainer belongs to.
i'm also not troubled with moving to different wards to get what i'm looking for.

what i can imagine which could be troublesome at some point is the future addition of main towns.
in FFXI the AHs that weren't connected to other towns (Sandy/Bastok/Windy) were okay for beginners to find small things.
at some point you were mainly visiting Whitegate/Jeuno to get what you're looking for.

the point with FFXIV tho is, there is no real beginning area.
as soon as new towns come, even more wards will get introduced, but where will you put your retainer in the end?
traveling between towns might be easy with anima, but it can get annoying at some point to allways have to travel between towns to just get a single material.
and connecting wards so you can access ishgard from ul'dah would also be a lil strange.

either ways, AH or wards, i'm cool with both.