Hex Maps Need Empty Rooms

When I was first reading The Dark of Hot Springs Island, one of the things that struck me was that the density of points of interest on the island was almost completely uniform across it. As an OSR novitiate at the time, I didn't think too much of it, but nearly a decade of play onward, I've come to realize that there's a popular style of hex map that I don't like very much - the kind that puts a point of interest in every hex. Exploring a hex map isn't so different from exploring a dungeon, especially if you are (as I think most of those who play hexcrawls are) using abstract hexes rather than representational hexes. Each hex functions as a room in a dungeon, where you can have random encounters or interact with the contents of the hex and move through the hex border just like you would a typical exit to a dungeon room. One of the earliest bits of advice about dungeon stocking was to leave empty rooms. As many of us have learned over the years, empty rooms don't mean there's…