I wouldn't call it "lazy." Live Service games live or die on their repeatable content, and The Division 1 wasted the majority of its map by having none of it occur there. Once you cleared out Manhattan, there was no more reason to go back there. Sure, you could go for a stroll and admire your handiwork, but there was no gameplay to be had. Instead, your only option for actual progression was the West Side Piers, which constituted a small and claustrophobic area.
The Division 2 is basically the West Side Piers, except across the entire map. The intent as I see it is to make as much of the game's full body of content replayable. Main missions can be replayed in full, side mission areas are reused for Bounties with much the same mechanics, activities constantly reset and can be rerun, control points constantly swap hands and can be retaken. Hell, at World Tier 5, you can even boost control point difficulty for a much tougher fight with much greater rewards. Every part of The Division 2 is designed to be relevant and worth re-running in the end game. That's not lazy, but rather smart use of resources. I'd argue that The Division 1 was hugely wasteful in how it used its world map.


