You are right that normal Dungeon Queues are fast. Almost instant if you play as healer like me. But for the 8 man raids I waited 600+ minutes total for the first one ( in 3 different sittings ) with no luck until a high level carried me like I said previously. The two others I waited about 160 minutes and 200 minutes respectively before a high level felt sorry for me and carried me again both times. Different times, different players carrying.

The raids were: Rhitalyn, Castrum and Prateorium. Basically killing the 3 main baddies and ultima weapon and then that posessed wizard guy pretty much. And I'm pretty sure they were required to progress through the MSQ.

RP stuff and goofing off sounds fun but that's not close to being possible. Every Duty Finder group is a wham bam thank you mam kind of run there's no skill involved or anything that might pique an interest in anyone and there's no relationships to be formed and the world is dead everywhere.

Seems to me there's no meaningful interactions you can have with any other player whatsoever except for the odd high level feeling sorry for your low level ass begging on the streets.