I didn't mind them, but for the most part felt they were tossed in to just artificially inflate the length of the game.
Unfortunately, I felt that the difficulty of the game meant that there were times when you were encouraged to wander around to collect experience.
Though I was still quite new to the game and found the game to be pretty difficult when I got to the Nashkel mines. I was able to play it again later, but by this time I wanted the story and not getting lost in the woods.