Passive Tree Visuals: A bit of a mess

The passive skill tree is in need of a more structured facelift, while i appreciate the artistic flow of the tree, it does not clearly communicate travel distance and in too many places it looks more like a tangle of thread rather than branches of a tree.
The use of specific shapes to communicate what a node cluster is without having to read each and every one of them tells me that the tree was created with new player ease of access in mind. Why then, is nearly half of it such a total mess all smushed together in a series of curves and bends that make it difficult to follow?
PoE 1's tree, while VERY bloated, had a solid structure of three rings that i believe should be adhered to, not simply because i want to whinge, but because if you want the tree to be easy to read for new players, then things should be spaced more evenly and not be so confusing to the eye.

I think some UX improvements like highlighting shortest path to selected node could help

I think something like that would certainly be helpful, but perhaps only in the case of knowing what you are looking for, not for a new player looking at the tree for the first time.
Some examples of what I was talking about with general lack of clarity are: Spiral into Insanity/Mania/Depression. These nodes are so close as to almost be touching, and appear to be part of the same node, but they are not and have three different access points.
Another example is how massively bloated the monk starter area is (when looking at it from a Sorceress's tree). There are so many notables slammed together that it makes it a mess, when the travel points between the monk and sorceress are devoid of meaningful nodes.

I think it desperately needs at least some minimal planning tools, like maybe holding shift would highlight and give a node count of the shortest path from your tree to the node, etc.