Yeah, that's one of the main gripes I had with this game while leveling up. I frequently experienced a content-drought, which meant I had to go looking for things to do in order to level up. When I raised this issue with other people I was usually told to 'go explore' or 'go craft' or 'go play WvWvW.' Except, I don't enjoy that content, but the game is essentially forcing me to do it. Why can't I play the way I want to play?
I enjoy questing. In WoW I barely touched PvP or crafting because I spent all my time questing. Sure, it was repetitive, but if I wanted to quest my way to 80, I could. Each zone in WoW had roughly about 100-150 quests, more than enough to level you past the zone's recommended level. In GW2, if a zone is level 15 - 25 and you enter at level 15, there's maybe 10 quests in the entire zone and if you do all the quests you'll likely just go from 15 to 18. The solution to this is to go to other zones to do more quests, but that's not really a solution for me. There should be enough content in a zone so that I can choose how I want to level. I don't want to be forced to go exploring or crafting just so I can unlock the next set of quests, which is the content I'm really after.
I respect what Anet tried to do here. They tried to diversify things so that players wouldn't do the same thing over and over and over again. Except they made one mistake. They should have tried to encourage players to diversify their playstyle, but instead they are now forcing players to diversify their playstyle. The choice should in the end always be up to the player. If I want to do the same thing over and over, I should be able to.
Anet did a ton of good things with GW2. They improved a lot on the traditional MMO formula, but for me I just feel too limited in what I can do in game. As soon as I start enjoying something in GW2, something else sneaks in and takes a dump all over my enjoyment. I want to choose what I want to do in an MMO, not be herded into doing certain things.
And that's not even touching the whole issue of how Diminishing Returns punishes players for playing a certain way and how the moment someone finds an easy way to make money Anet nerfs it so your gold income slows down to a trickle again. Nevermind even how the cash shop pretty much is one of the biggest influences in the game and is likely the reason why we have to put up with bullshit like Diminishing Returns