Blindly exploring parts of the game and talking to npcs that you would have run straight passed towards the quest beacon doesn't sound as terrible as you're making it sound.
I wasn't "exploring" in the spiritual sense or "talking", I was brute-force-searching the entire map to find whatever stupid magic button or item or conversation the devs were forcing me to have so I could keep playing the game.
Completely immersion breaking.
That's exactly it, really, amazing games are degraded by the modern over-hand-holding; but the average game is much better for it.