I think it's a tough balance. If I want to be immersed, there needs to be places where there's nothing. The world is full of places with nothing going on, and games should be allowed to reflect this. A game that is filled to the brim is stressful. My best example of this is Old School Runescape vs Runescape 3. Old School has plenty of places without anything actually useful, and it makes the places with something meaningful even more so. Runescape 3 is filled to the brim with all kinds of bullshit. It's literally impossible to walk for 30 seconds, without having something light up like a giant neon sign with the writing "PAY ATTENTION TO ME, LOOK HOW MUCH CONTENT THERE IS". It feels incredibly claustrophibic and like the game is doing everything it can to make you do anything but what you set out to do.

Of course, as mentioned at first, there needs to be balance, and a lot of open world games have had a very hard time finding this balance, but I really like those places where it's just a field with nothing particularly going on. It can serve as great world building to show that sometimes, a place is just a place, and doesn't have to be anything but a place.