While I think your over exaggerating the time spent running considering I ran from Gridania > Uldah > boat > Limsa > bloodshore in 1 hour and 6 min last night on my new character while picking up crystals. I get what your saying but its really no less "exciting" or "immersive" than doing leves and or grinding on mobs for 2 hours +. Then again that is more of a personal opinion that varies with each person.
While I agree that I think most of the quests are quite drab right now. There is no reason that could not change... but also kill mobs / get item / talk to npcs / escorts , pretty much describes every single quest I have played in mmos outside of main storyline / large event type things... And while I know you were not suggesting this what so ever, we can't expect to have awesome cutscenes and deep plot for every single little thing we do in this game its just not feasible at this point.
With that said I don't think its out of the realm of possibility that they could introduce more questing based leveling up... -although I think even this would require a ton of work...honestly I think the more ways to rank the better, I would really like to see the class missions expanded upon personally... but as stated previously I would continue to do a little of whatever fits my mood when I log in anyway. So just saying.
