I just wish there were enough side quests that were actually interesting enough to be worth doing. There's a few side quests on some of the earlier planets that were kind of interesting. It seems like as time went on, the designers got lazy or rushed and just made a short cinematic to justify run-of-the-mill kill or click quota quests:
"I need these things killed."
"Thanks for killing them. Here's your reward."
That's about the extent of the story for 90% of the side quests. I try to do all the side quests on each planet with at least one character, but every time I do I regret it. I'm actually pretty happy you just have to do planet line and class quests. Planet line quests are usually pretty interesting and usually hit the same areas as the class quests so you're going to be there anyway. Not that much extra time. I think it's fair. I was dreading having to go back to the old way of leveling but this feels like a decent compromise.