That's the section they're (apparently) making significant changes to for cutting down quest bloat. There are unfortunately a lot of small pointless quests in that section of gameplay, but mixed with some really important character introductions and plot points. Hopefully they will tighten it up a lot and improve the pacing.

There's always a long section of story inbetween the credits of a main game and the start of the next one - two years of episodic storytelling in five or six chapters, basically. The expansions are better on the pacing and interesting story.

Also, a heads-up for some things that are optional at the point where you are but become required later: the three "hard mode" primal trials against Ifrit, Titan and Garuda need to be completed before you can progress to the final chapter of the post-ARR MSQ, and the currently-optional Crystal Tower questline (starting with "Legacy of Allag" in Revenant's Toll) is set to become required as of patch 5.3 but is better done at this point for story continuity.