I haven't made it to Pyros because I'm still stuck in Pagos, and if it's not because of the BS leveling system there, it's because I'm in a similar situation as you. I learned the soul-crushingly hard way that the level 25 quest point cannot be reached travelling along the Val River Belly (a path that would make the most sense given the reasonable progression of enemy levels relative to your own there) but instead forces you to go all the way around through Brushtip Gap and Agaric Rock - a trek that is made much more painful without the ability to use mounts and the level 30+ mobs with ridiculously long tethers that can take you down faster than the Chaos Data Center.
I have been reluctant to finish that quest for that reason.
What boggles my mind is how SE expects players to do this, let alone solo. I'd really like (and I'm using 'like' very loosely here) to start leveling outside of challenge logs, but it's damn-near impossible to when there's a terrible risk of losing progress and the higher-leveled playerbase is seemingly apathetic.