Very true. I never said it would be a "popular" decision, just one that WOULD make real estate more of a viable market in this game. Now if something could break the hangar cartels, well, while that'd hack them off all to pieces, I regret to inform them that cheaper travel is good for the economy.
But yeah, my idea about the shops being closer to the TP may be something to be filed under "When
PE-China opens, do THIS instead of building huge sprawling malls with no directories and hardly any foot traffic."
Besides, the small stalls would be more competition for the resellers methinks (or an outlet for them) rather than traditional shopkeepers MAYBE (I could very easily be highly wrong about it). In other words, the "stalls" could be useful for selling the cheap armor and enmats and ores and whatnot that resellers usually trade in, while allowing the shops to truly specialize and differentiate their product further. In reality, this game has about 3x as many shops as are really useful and necessary in it at present, BUT while a few highly specialized shops would be efficient, the current format (theoretically) keeps a check on prices.
In a perfect world, this game's area would expand as its player base did. Right now you could drag and drop PA and Twin to the other continent, lob it off, and still have probably far too much room for the number of active players. Face time for shops and sellers alike is an issue.