War Along that same train of thought, what would you think of more limited fast travel? Personally, I think it really does a disservice to the size of the world when you can just walk to the nearest farm and then fast travel to some random Orc stronghold on the other side of Skyrim. Remember how there are sort of 'taxis' outside of cities? I don't think I ever used one, because you had to pay for them, and it was just as easy to fast travel. I also barely used horses in the later stages of the game, because it was more time-efficient to fast travel.
I think it'd be really cool if they made horses a bit faster, they improved horse mechanics (it's really easy to lose a horse in Skyrim), limited fast travel, so that you either have to actually travel across the land yourself or at least find a taxi / ship, and then also implemented the more localised quests, so that you wouldn't have to find a taxi every time you wanted to complete a quest.
I guess what I'm saying is I really don't think that many people fully appreciate the scale of the worlds being built, and I think this might be a way to do that without inconveniencing the player too much.