No skipping at all (well, except for cutting some of Mr Blonde&Boring's lines short after reading them because I couldn't stand hearing him talk). I even found all Aether Currents and completed map exploration in each zone as well as doing a couple of sidequests. Loved almost all of it.
Frankly, I just played as much as I possibly could (and slept fairly little) because I had the option to do so and because I knew I wouldn't be able to play much during this week with the queue situation and my work hours. I wanted to get it done on launch weekend so I could enjoy it, relax and not be stuck in spoiler avoidance ville all this week. Really, there's such pace to the story that even if I wanted to stop it would have been hard to do so.