Hi,
The drawback of areas is, that they are not routable. I think we should NOT loose all the contributors which have the main goal to mape a routable OSM.
If this is the case, then I am strongly against mapping as areas only. At least doing double work as suggested bySorkNika. Mapping lines before area as a rule of thumb? Would that make sense as a top down approach?
Gruss, Florian