It's extremely impressive that they think they can improve the exploration from Xenoblade X and I'm particularly grateful for the confirmation of both multiple Towns and Dungeons. I missed having more towns in X in spite of that game's rather intriguing exploration of many, many alien cultures. Hopefully, they're able to take their level design to another level.
Also the choice of words like "initiatory journey" gives me some big Grandia vibes which I really like a lot. Though I do wonder if we'll get anything horrific like the Water Plant Sidequest in Xenoblade X. I wouldn't mind that.
The answer on Sidequests doesn't say much but it does hint towards more sidequest based character development and more macro gameplay progression (stuff like the colony town development) with generally less filler overall which is a good progression from Xenoblade X's choice to only have narrative quests populate the overworld and place most of the nameless requests on a board. The return of auto-completing quests is still nice, however.
I do agree with the choice to not bother with player Airship travel. I think Monolith learned a valuable lesson there. Especially to not waste the player's time with forcing them to move manually though duller space when they could just have another cool level/area immediately. I look forward to traveling on foot because as much fun as the Skell was in Xenoblade X, I think the awe of Monolith's worlds is best expressed at a human-sized scale.
I've always liked that Takahashi's protagonists always had defined professions before the story kicked in and that seems to continue nicely with Rex's profession as a Scavenger especially since it's actually a gameplay detail as well it seems.