New quests encourage skipping missions?

I was quite surprised when I ended up at Quarrel Falls from Druid's Outlook just doing the "price of steel" quest, which was chained to a quest from Druid's Outlook. And even more surprised when I ended up at Ventari's Refuge after that.

So is Anet trying to encourage skipping missions?

Perhaps this was done to address the ppl complaining about the tedium of going though the same missions over and over with different characters?

iirc (i generally skip the whole jungle area now and go to Sanctum Cay)
then there are no missions between those particular areas?

Uhm, yes there is.
DO->QF=The Wilds
DO->VR=Bloodstone Fen.

_Zexion

The only real reason to explore the jungle area are the good skills available in Maguuma Satde and Quarrel Falls. But even then, you don't have to do the missions for those.