It's a common mistake where party exp should always be better than solo exp.
Party exp is better than solo exp because it is harder to form party. In ideal form overall payout for party exp or solo exp should be equal in a sense in a large party you still have to wait other people dealing with real life, getting together and etc.
In a static these issues can be ironed out so having static party leveling faster than solo play is understandable. However at this point in time in FFXIV solo playing is so gimped it's painful. Sure you can do behest, but technically behest is also partying. Also solo players do get penalized from item drops as well. What I hope for FFXIV to do in future with solo play would be that it's still viable way to hit the necessary lvl with soloing to benefit from the subjob skills. Solo player shouldn't be penalized at the cost of group play, and large group shouldn't be penalized for their extra members for socializing through LS leve run.

On to transportation, 10 to 15min run isn't bad. What's bad is city to city transport + to node. From LL to Uldah is 3 anima then from uldah to BW is 2 anima, then back to LL is another 3 anima from LL to IL is 2 anima. That's 10anima per leve reset. Not everyone has time to run everywhere, some people are on limited time to play. That's on normal leve reset day which is every 36hours. In group of 12 you can't expect everyone to wait for the boat, run to the camp. Anima is shared in group but there are other time issues. Which is why anima recharging NPC would be helpful using GIL.

On to crafting, yes some people enjoy mini game, but not everyone does. Some people craft so that they can fix the item they use because finding repairer are pain sometimes. Adding option of mass production doesn't mean stripping what's important to some crafter. What they could do is reduce sp gain from mass produced item. Like hasty hand and reduce success rate. Even then some people would still go w/ mass production option

Again it's my opion on the game and it's opion based on my time allotment.