The new journey mode is much harder and tedious than it was previously. From reading your comments, I understand you wanted to vary gameplay so that players aren't just gunning for one specific skill. Though I think you may have over tuned it in the other direction to where it's more difficult to go straight for the boss in a dungeon. If the answer instead is to fight every monster and go to every location on the map to prepare for the stage boss, you also need to consider the time investment in order to do so.
Just something to keep in mind. I know this is still a demo, so I expect the combat to have a lot of tweaking in the future. As it is now, I don't particularly enjoy the journey system and will hesitate to do a new game plus after I've already defeated most of the bosses before the combat update. Don't feel discouraged by this comment though. I still love everything else about this game (besides the resource grinding).