The issue she had was never with the presence of water but the ammount of time you had to spend on it.  Alola has tons of water but you don't have to spend so much time on it.  It's the time spent on it that effected gameplay in undesirable ways.

Alola barely has any water, there's like only one instance where you're forced to use it to progress the story.

Just beat the Elite Four and Champion. I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed by the route before the League, it was very short. The Pokémon League was also too easy and felt rushed in.

interesting, i thought the Pokemon League was very challenging, especially the Golfer.

The golfer was the hardest of the four, but still not very hard. The Champion gave me some trouble with his Fire type Pokémon (which caught me a bit by surprise, lol) though. My only water Pokémon is Toxapex and he has no water moves. :p

By the way, has anyone noticed that in a lot of towns there are these empty spaces with building material on it? In the first city there's two Machamps standing there and the guy nearby says they bulldozed the ground in preperation for something. What is that for?

The gyms? I haven't beaten the game yet but that's what I'm assuming.

Assuming they aren't filled in post game (haven't heard that they are but have been avoiding post game spoilers), I would guess it could be a thing for Pokemon Stars if that's a thing or for a direct sequel.