At least could let me summon my bird companion so I can do so challenging open-world content while I wait.

And still, I think they could do more for server-based recruitment, make 72-player Frontlines queueing different in some way from standard Duty Finder queueing. Something like GATEs or open-world recruitment working parallel with a viewable lobby (all accessible from the GC hub in the 3 major cities). But that's probably beyond SEs interest.