Yeah I also feel that the Nexus lights was a missed opportunity as they could have made low level content give decent amounts of lights and make pretty much all content a viable option but they screwed the pooch on that and now nexus primal farm parties are the most efficient way to do that and have ended up in trial roulette being boring and somewhat frustrating when you bring a new person into them and want them to get some handle on fight mechanics.

As an aside for anyone leveling up low level stuff, it's worth a shot to throw up the party finder. If you can get even a single tank or healer it speeds up your queue dramatically and I've managed to get random wonderful people to join for random stuff like helping someone go into Cutter's Cry just for a hunting log kill, Castrum and Praetorium waiting for the new people to watch cutscenes, etc. Also make sure all languages are toggled on in the DF menu.