I've had lots of places respawn. A good example is Valtheim Towers where I died the other day. I don't recall having a quest there (maybe one of the random fetch quests but certainly not a major one) and the entire place has respawned and repopulated at least six times during my looong playthrough.
I think some of the inconsistency comes about from the difference between safe containers and safe locations. Safe containers are safe wherever they appear in the game and in safe locations every container is safe even if they don't normally appear on the usual safe storage list.
And now back in ESO I have no safe storage at all apart from that full chest and my nearly full bank.
I yearn for the days of Morrowind when you could just leave stuff anywhere.