Well said -- I'm not a huge fan of FF XII's world design (I prefer X's actually), as the overworld areas tend to be a little too big and a little too confusing to traverse for my taste. Also I find Sakimoto's compositions grating, which sure doesn't help. But there is a LOT to do in these different zones, and many of them do have an excellent sense of place, as you've nicely laid out. I think part of the design of XII is that fiddling around in these big complicated zones is NOT supposed to be just filler between plot points, but is actually a big part of what you do in the game. The offline MMO. If you don't like this fiddling (I had mixed feelings) that's OK, but it's not fair to suggest that it's just an impediment to the actual game. It's well over 50% of what you do in the game!
What I preferred about X's world is that what you do in the (much simpler) locations is almost always related to your overall journey/quest. It adds a sense of propulsion and continuity to the journey that older FFs had (thanks in part to how quick/easy it is to traverse the world map). XII loses this momentum as they try and make the big areas and the idiosyncratic things you do in them a core part of the journey.
XIII has the sense of momentum, but almost none of the places feel like real places -- they're just monster-filled tubes. And without periodic slowdowns in cities/towns, the pacing is too monotonous.
XV did recover this link between place and what you do there and story. Dealing w/ imperial drop ships, for instance. It just fell apart in the second half of the game where the structure changes, and bad plotting in the first half undermines the effect. Excellent dungeons though. If they could slim down the zone structure of XII, keep the propulsion of X, and add dungeons as well designed as XV, I think I'd be pretty happy!
