It has long been heartbreaking to try and travel through SL with out the aid of the o'so easy teleport option. Traveling by ship, plane, automobile, horse or even by foot has often resulted in crashing or rubber banding across the grid.
It seems that is all about to change, or at least there are mumblings about getting the sim crossing experiance to be a better one.
Thank you to Ambassador Whitfield for bringing this article to my attention!