I think that both the OP (Roaran) and Xenor are making valid points, but looking at different aspects of the economy.

Replying first to the OP:

I agree that something does need to be done to address the concentration of the economy into a single city. Since essentially all servers are seeing this concentration into Ul'dah, it must be systemic in nature, rather than a random process -- otherwise, the chosen concentration point would be different on different servers.

I am concerned about your suggestion to link all of the market areas into one, however. Such a step, once done, cannot effectively be undone. I have seen many, many games that have been severely diminished by 'globalization' of the world.

As you point out, the purpose of a market is to bring buyers and sellers together. Player A has an item, but has little need for it, while Player B has need of the item and is willing to pay gil for it. The purpose of the market system is supposed to be to bring these two players together, so that exchange of gil and items can take place.

In what ways is this current system failing?

1) Only sellers are represented.
The current market system only lets searches (within one city) be performed on items being sold. Thus only the supply side of the economy is represented. Buyers, and the demand side, must play a passive role. Retainers have the option to seek items, yet this function is currently crippled by a host of problems (cannot search, takes two bazaar slots, must have item(s) wish to purchase, must purchase entire stack at once) that, if addressed, could provide sellers some guidance as to what buyers are willing to pay.

2) Bazaar space is limited
Given the rate at which items are obtained through combat drops, gathering, and crafting, and the sheer number of different items in the game, the 20 bazaar slots available through the two retainers means that there is significant opportunity cost in choosing to list one item instead of another. I'm certain that most people that are selling are taking advantage of character slots being currently free of charge to effectively obtain more bazaar selling space, which is a short term solution.

I'm not suggesting that more bazaar space simply be added (although that is an option), but that retainers be made to fulfill better the function that they are supposed to.

3) Retainers are not autonomous enough
In the very beginning, when you obtained your first retainer, you are told that the retainer is there to help you buy and sell, since you are an adventurer, not a shop-keeper. And yet, your retainer seems to need a lot of hand-holding. In so many ways....

Retainers can be summoned from across the world by the ringing of a bell, yet they cannot go, on your direction, to a particular ward, in a particular city, to sell your goods. Instead, you must physically take your character to the particular ward, to the particular city, and lead your retainer by the hand to tell them where to sell. Why is this so? What is the harm in directing your retainer from Limsa, to travel to Gridania in order to sell your goods? Retainers certainly seem capable enough of travelling around the world.

Additionally, items can only be moved from the retainer's inventory to/from the bazaar in the presence of the player. I fail to see why this sort of instruction could not take place via a linkpearl connecting the retainer and the player. Allowing a player to move new items into the bazaar remotely to replace those that have sold, or repricing existing items lower in order to move goods, would help compensate for the limited number of bazaar slots that retainers have.

Finally, retainers only buy and sell passively. Truth be told, purchasing materials is somewhat tedious and problematic. This seems more like the kind of task that should be given to a retainer. Perhaps, as alternative to "seek item" (or in addition), a retainer could be instructed to purchase certain types of items, at a given price or below, but the retainer would not be put into the market wards as a seller/buyer. Instead the retainer would be "roaming the markets" in virtually the same manner as the player would, buying items or searching for them as they come available. This frees the player from the drudgery of continually canvassing the markets, leaving them free to ... well ... be an adventurer. Since retainers can clearly move from city to city, retainers could move from city to city, searching them all (with time), thus providing some economic connection between the cities without that drudgery being forced upon the players.

Functionally, this could work by give the retainer the seek item task, not setting them in the wards, and waiting. After some length of time (and additional cost, to fund the retainers travel and prevent abuses), if the item is available, the retainer would purchase what can be purchased (length of time to prevent abuses and simulate players performing a similar search).

Retainer were supposed to free adventurers from being chained to the markets, but instead are chaining us to the markets themselves.

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In direct response to your points:

Link the Market Wards.
Having diversity of market wards, in the long run, I hope will make a richer and more compelling game world. There are alternatives to linking the market wards via a single NPC, as I have suggested, and hopefully you (and others) will critique them and point out flaws and improvements.

By allowing retainers to travel to sell in distant wards without requiring the player to travel there, and by allowing retainers to travel to purchase items, the markets would be linked. The first allows players to place the retainer where they wish to sell the item, without the player investing the time to travel there. The second allows players to place their retainers more freely where they wish, without the concern that no one will see the goods being sold. Together these could result in retainers being more evenly distributed through the various regional markets.

One stop shopping.
I agree that ease of buying and selling should be improved, but I (personally) dislike the over-simplification of the economy into talking to a single NPC. I believe that reducing the amount of time that the player must spend to buy and sell items is the key point here, not necessarily the time spent between desire to have an item and when the item is in the player's inventory.

If I can spend two minutes directing my retainer to go and seek puk wings (for wing glue, say), then go off and do guild leves, or explore the wilds, and two hours later when I return my retainer has the purchase, I would be pleased.

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In summary, while I agree with the OP's goals, I believe that the same functionality of linking the markets and making buying and selling less time intensive can be done by adding more functionality to the existing retainers.
  • Make retainer "Seek Item" work
  • Allow placement of retainers without the player traveling to the ward
  • Allow players to adjust retainer bazaar remotely via retainer linkpearl
  • Allow retainers to purchase items from the wards