I agree with you. The pace of crafting to progress is slow. The story forces you to uncover it by exploring further and deeper. The distress calls nudge you in the right directions.

My last playthrough I was determined to beat the game. It took 50 hours and at the end I got frustrated because just when I thought I was at the end, they wanted me to grind even more for some hard to craft materials which would require me to dive far and deep and look for things while things were dangerous.

Exhausted, I used a single console command to give myself the thing I didn’t want to grind for and bam. Completed. The games a marathon. It’s entertaining, scary, interesting, and tedious. I’m not interested in any sequels.