Something Old - World Maps: I'm starting to think that the movement to seamless world design is what ultimately has led the series into pacing issues and poor dungeon design. I feel if we just ditched the concept of "realism" the designers would have to be forced to really work to make the dungeons a bit more exciting and perhaps the pacing of the game would be easier since we're no longer trying to make two locations feel realistically far enough apart to not screw with suspension of disbelief. Then again, I may just want to finally have a real airship again.

Something New - Better World Building: The series has always had interesting worlds, but lately, they have not been told well. I don't really want to have some old dude info drop everything for me, nor am I really wanting to stop playing the game to spend twenty minutes reading all of the datalogs. I wish the series could find a more organic way to make the world detailed and feel alive, like better NPCs or perhaps just some new means of dispensing important info without jerking me back to the reality that I'm playing a game.

Something Borrowed - Diverging story points (Chrono series): I was originally going to say "take MegaTen's Press Turn combat system" but figured SE would water it down into something boring and meaningless like FFX's CTB system. Instead, I wouldn't mind being given story choices that actually affect the plot, even if only a little. I'm not asking for a Persona style "two stories, one game approach" nor do I wish to venture into a boring "evil/good" moral system with dialogue changes. I'm talking about choices that can net you new characters, have you explore a different dungeon/town, or alter NPCs/party members on a permanent basis.