So, let's look at a typical playthrough with this "smaller areas with transitions":
Load into a map, do x, walk for 2 or 3 minutes, area transition. Load in, do y, walk for 2 or 3 minutes, area transition. Rinse and repeat.
I'm not interested. It's sort of funny to think about though. So, I've been playing Fallout 4 quite a bit recently. I only have about 20 or so mods running, but after about an hour or so of play time, going from an inside area to an outside area through a door can take anywhere from 2 to, and I've actually had this happen, 5 minutes. I'm left feeling grateful that I'm running it on an SSD, because if not, those times could be "get dressed, get on the bike, ride 40 miles to go to the store that's 5 blocks away, get some sandwich stuff, come home, make a sandwich and maybe the game will be loaded from a single transition". I spent about 8 minutes on an elevator that led to an outside area once, and once, I had to reload an earlier save, because it was over 10 minutes loading, this on an SSD... No thanks.
