Agreed. But more than anything about attrition, range and distance, I'd wish for the role of the changing winds and currents to be correctly represented.
Depending on whether you had winds in your favor or not, travel times could be doubled or halved, if not more. No travel could ever be scheduled to take a given time, not until the age of steam (and even then...).
Also, storms more often delayed than sank ships, yet they do only the latter now. They don't even prevent combat, while they really should (at least most of times, or greatly reduce the chance of a successful interception).
Another point is blocus. Blocus has, in EU2, an influence on the income of the provinces. That's right. But that shouldn't be the only effect, it should also greatly reduce the income from trade in foreign CoTs (if CoTs are to be kept, in a form or another).