The thing I remember about the Lord of the Rings movies was feeling disappointed by all the extra action scenes Peter Jackson had written in ( Iunderstood why but I was still a little disappointed).
Now personally I have no problem with the game mechanics making me do the same actions when I am doing the same thing, such as jumping between stars or cruising between planets. As far as grind goes I just avoid as much as possible activities that strike me as being that way, the thing is grind is a personal thing and just because I find an activity, ironing for example boring and a grind, the physically very similar activity of smoothing wood with a plane is much less so.
Different people enjoy different aspects of the game, some even like missions enough to spend all their time doing them, different strokes and all that.
As far as making the journey is concerned I am hoping you aren't talking about making us fly the ships between stars all the time, but instead the idea that journey is the term for developing your skill set and character?