Better range on revealing minimap icons would go a long way to reduce the backtracking.

Reverting the change to the distance minimap icons show up (like in poe1) would be great to reduce the backtracking through the massive areas. It sucks to pass right next to a point of interest, have it not show up on the minimap and then waste 10 minutes scouring these huge maps looking for it.
This could also apply to rares in maps. Make it so that rares you pass by get marked on the minimap so you don't run past them and even if you do at least you know where they were.

They definitely should at least have some sort of visual markers to let you know a story path vs explorable area, or at least put more stuff in the currently dead areas to make going to them more worthwhile like extra chests or bosses.