Ganon, you are absolutly right.
Especially the Xp bonus over a small area seems nice to me. When I started it was very exciting to be a peasent and go to the (dangerous) battlefront in order to get xp shared. But since I started after the patch, my idea was senseless as there is only Xp over time
Actually I am grinding just in hope to have a useful and rewarding xp system one day...