Why punish players who just want to play DoL DoH?

[kyuven]

There's other MMOs that's heavily story driven as well that still has side stuff, like crafting, not locked behind main story content.

There are, but crafting in that game is even more of a side venture than it is in this game. Some of those games even require crafted items for MSQs.
They're also not nearly as story driven, and they STILL lock certain features.
No one in this game is stopping you from leveling to 60 crafting and gathering and nothing else in this game. You just need to do the MSQs to get the most out of what you're doing. This has always been true, even in more freeform games. Hell some games like WoW put crafting and gathering nodes deep inside dungeons!