Any weird/controversial opinions? I'll start. Before the remake, the best version of Resident Evil 4 was the Wii version. The Wiimote controls old Resi's tank controls better than any other controller at the time. The PC version had a bunch of little bugs and detractors that the Wii version just doesn't have.
I'll extend this by saying that the Wiimote is actually pretty damn good for shooters, and particularly good for accessibility. Not having to cramp up my hands to press buttons is awesome for having arthritis. Aiming with the Wiimote and moving with the nunchuck just feel really natural, you barely have to move your fingers for anything.
Fast tarvel are optional in most games so if immersion is your thing just don't use it. I am not gonna hold w key for 10 mins to go to a different area, that simply is a waste of time to me. I wish fast travel are available even for shorter distances.
The problem your're describing is that the developers made uninteresting travel mechanics, and/or built their world in a way that requires the player to travel too much and too far.
Fast travel lets developers get away with bad design decisions, which they wouldn't make if they knew there wasn't going to be fast travel.
I wouldn't say it's bad. Like taking a big open world game like rdr2, you need fast travel one way or another. Either by train or horse fast travel I can pretty go around the whole map without too much hassle. I don't think that's breaking immersion and I would also sometime travel the entire distance by horse when I feel like it. You are absolutely free to say you don't like fast travel as optional mechanic but taking that away would genuinely make an open world game unplayable for me.
I said the same thing about XP to a friend the other day. I often think most XP systems just act as a way to artificially inflate game time and act as a difficulty slider.