As others have pointed out this will be sorted soon enough with SHB. It is a bit of a slog but at the same time that is what it means to join an MMO after it's already been widely successful. You either pony up the dough to skip or you grind the long hard road. There are several FCs out there who don't mind running the older content to help newbies out so I don't feel like this as wide of a problem.