Quote Originally Posted by Esmoire View Post
Minfilia sends you to another ZONE to meld materia into her dagger.
This is meant to teach you about materia. The crafter and gatherer quests do it as well. They want to make sure you have unlocked materia properly. We can make the same argument about all the quests that unlock game mechanics and how we don't really need lore for every little thing. For example, New Game+, the challenge log, the hunting log, dyes, glamour prisms and party finder didn't really need unlock quests, but we always get them for things like this.