The NPCs are actually a bit important cause they fill you in on information the main story will not speak about. Like the fact Vayne is actually making the lives of people in Rabanastre better while others unlock Mark Hunts like the one with Deathgaze.

As for not liking the dungeon crawl/long exploration, well... you might want to stop cause the game just gets worse. When you finally trek over to Archades, that's about a 3 hour trek for the party and while there are some story points and cutscenes involved, you won't be tripping over them like you would in FFX and XIII, where a cutscene can be expected every five minutes.

The "final" dungeon as most accept being the Pharos is massive (quite possibly one of the longest I've encountered except maybe from Arc the Lad 2) and the lower half is completely optional.