I agree with OP. Group content should be kept for dungeons and trials. First thing I fell in love with when I started this game was that i could solo mobs 1 or 2 lvls higher than myself. In FF11 you were lucky if you could solo a mob 2 lvls lower than you. Unless you were a NIN or /NIN and had millions of gil worth of Utsuseme tools.

Can you imagine if you need a group of people every time you had to go attune your self to the Primal crystals so you could unlock NM, HM and then EX? It would be annoying and tedious just like the fates were to unlock the Towers.