FFXII's areas are obstacles. You have to constantly run through these dumb areas to get to the good stuff. Nothing interesting ever happens in them, they're never fun to explore. They're just filler areas designed to chew up playtime and get in the player's way. You never get vehicles to play with, you never get to redefine the way you look at the world, it's just a bunch of dead space. I've given FFXII so many tries on multiple different platforms and its world design is so mindblowingly dull that I've never finished it.
By comparison, FFXV's overworld IS the game. It's not filler, it's not there to delay you from getting to do cool things, it's just there because that's what the game is. I have a lot less of an issue with a game where the game world is basically the entire point of the experience than I do with a game where 60% of the experience is spent sleepwalking through big, empty boxes on your way to the next cutscene.
I have the same exact problem with the world design in modern Tales games and DQXI. It's NEVER compelling or fun to play around in and it's not worth losing vehicles and scale.
I wish I were able to connect at least slightly with your reply! Alas, I cannot. So I guess I'll double down. Here's my analysis of the five things I mentioned (FFX's Calm Lands; the trio of FFXII zones; FFXV's world).
In the Calm Lands, players get to stretch their proverbial muscles after the more linear approach to prior areas. This place is not unlike a "zone" would be in other JRPGs, like Xenoblade Chronicles or FFXII. Chocobos can be ridden here, and certain areas are only accessible via chocobo. There's even a section where you can race against another chocobo! (There's also the place where you steer a chocobo toward balloons whilst evading birds, but we're not here to talk about hell.) The Calm Lands is chock full of optional stuff.
"But it's only one snippet of an otherwise-linear game," you might say. And you would be correct, of course. So what about FFXII? Let's begin with the Dalmasca Westersand. Rather than immediately diving into demonizing it and its Ivalacian brethren as vile pits of worthlessness festering with seventeen other negative adjectives, I'm going to go ahead and take a glance at the details. In the Westersand, a beautiful, intentionally Tatooine-esque landscape of rolling dunes and distant oases greets the player as they explore. Sandstorms are somewhat commonplace, adding not just an aesthetic change but some fun little boosts to various elemental attacks as well. Two mark hunts can be found: Thextera and Ring Wyrm. But as is generally the case with mark hunts in FFXII, you've gotta think a little bit about where you might find them, prompting further exploration. If you're not careful early on, you may bump into a T-Rex! (Earth Tyrant, to be exact.) There's a peddler around whose wares change throughout the game and, bless The Zodiac Age, treasures to be acquired in set locations. Lastly, and perhaps coolest of all — after you've completed the Tomb of Raithwall, you can find Adrammelech in the Zertinan Caverns.
Now on to the Mosphoran Highwaste. Funny name? Aye, but seriously memorable music theme. We'll begin by mentioning the esper this time around; Exodus, the Judge-Sal, can be found here. See, there's a whole fun thing going on in the Highwaste involving the deactivation of various shrines built before the time of the Galtean Alliance. (Ooh, lore bits! These can and do happen in zone-based JRPGs!) First, players need to have fixed the gate connecting the Salikawood to the Phon Coast. You'll then need to acquire some Gysahl Greens, which will allow you to ride a wayward chocobo for three minutes. Using your chocobo, you'll fiddle with the various shrines, setting them all up so that you can successfully reach Exodus. What's cool about the preceding pair of sentences is that you're
exploring an overworld region with a chocobo to reach hidden content, which is the sort of thing you have claimed crumbles away into meaninglessness outside of world maps and open worlds! Other fun stuff in the Highwaste includes dabbling in the fishing minigame, finding rare spawns, hunting the marks known as Atomos and Braegh, searching for treasure, dancing in the rain, visiting the settlement at the summit, and all-around admiring the vistas.
As for the Nabreus Deadlands, what a haunted sight! Why, it's worth the trip for the scenery alone. Mist-thick wetlands with plenty of skeletal remains? My kind of Saturday night. This zone is entirely optional, however it must be visited in order to complete the Three Medallions sidequest to unlock Chaos. This will involve finding a nu mou makes Ma'Kleou and traipsing off briefly to Rabanastre and Archades. The Deadlands are just north of the Salikawood; to the west you'll find the Necrohol of Nabudis. While you're here, you can hunt the Roblon. You can do a bit of fishing. There's not much else going on here — but that's the point. It's an optional locale and it's very much reminiscent of optional locales in other video games, regardless of whether they're zone-based, open world, or old-school world maps.
Each of the three FFXII regions I have listed, and most of the many regions I have not mentioned, are connected to each other via loading screens at their far edges. These loading screens change the tempo and the overall "feel" of the game, I won't deny it. But ultimately they're simply little tunnels leading to other parts of the overworld. (FFXIV follows suit, as I've recently discovered.) It's one great, big Ivalice and almost every location offers more content than you've claimed, to be honest. Collectively, what you end up with is a world that's larger and more audiovisually varied than FFXV's Kingdom of Regis, and frankly, a lot less
empty.
I understand that there is no arguing subjective preferences. You've given FFXII several tries. You don't care for its approach to world traversal and this is the crux of your issue with FFVII Remake pursuing a similar path. But to paint folks who enjoy that style as being interested in dead, lifeless gameplay design where nothing happens and there's zero impetus to do anything except advance to the next cutscene is quite simply disingenuous! So please, I beg of thee: look past your personal apathy and recognize that the design is not inherently irrevocably incompatible with content such as gold chocobo exploration and WEAPON hunting.