There's two big things that this change enables.
First the already mentioned decrease of the pvp distances. Went to try it out last night and seeing the Tempest at 100 sail get hit by small pirate ships was a fun little thing to witness. Granted they still did absolutely no damage due to their low quality ammunition.
The other thing people seem to overlook is that now the difference between 3 friends without any sail and 3 people with 100 sail in regards to PVE is next to nothing. Sure you probably don't want to go hunt undead galleons without sailors and repairs, but for all those trying to get into sailing without heavy investments or repair material collections you now absolutely can just grab a rental and sail around your favorite port hunting pirates and slavers on FAIR terms. Just make sure to dock for repairs and pay the pennies it costs with the smaller ships.
Seriously, without any skill point investment you can hit 40-50ish by making some gear yourself (25ish bags investment) and grabbing your favorite bard. I myself struggle a lot witth the 50 people on deck, dice winner takes the entire days earnings that bigger factions sometimes employ.
Grab a friend or two, shoot pirates and slavers (both have chances to spawn map pieces) and sell the spoils. We even sell the map pieces for 100ish each to the navies or other sailors and made tons of money without dice rolling at all.
Just for some numbers, the people who went along can confirm this, we usually had 3 to 4 people and 60-70ish total sail score (since we really just had 2 sailors with investment usually) and made 100+ bags per hour per person using nothing but normal ammunition we picked up and wood.
Sometimes you get lucky and find a ton of map pieces, sometimes you don't but the general earning always averaged around that when we just sold the things instead of fiddling with dice.
Realistically I'd say for people new to the sailing system you'll likely make a little below that, get sunk sometimes shooting something with too many masts or not going back for repairs in time, but for people who got the "we stand around for 6 hours and get nothing" mentality this form of sailing can be a lot more fun since everyone is involved in every decision and task instead of going semi afk and watching an army storm tiny ships.
Just don't put the coins first, focus on roleplaying, that's what makes or breaks the sailing and is the difference between public horde crews and the tight knit groups that stick together for years.
If you just wanna make a million a morning you wanna go solo sailing against undead galleons and while possible, that's usually not an experience meant for sane people :^)
