Exactly. Behests were my first grouping up experience in this game, and I think they could be made to serve as an introduction to partying for low-level characters rather easily. (Just adding a tutorial quest or sidequest that starts toward the beginning of the game that introduces new players to them.)
And again, they need to find a way to make people want to do Behests again. If that's eliminating the timer, I'm all for it.
Light Party and Full Party buffs are cool enough, but what about additional bonus for the longer you remain in a party? Either SP-wise or increasing the stats over time of the party buffs, S-E could add an additional incentive to stay in a group. Then maybe people would stay together after Behests and kill monsters in the wild, just as the original dev team originally envisioned. Just a thought.