Temple of Woedica and game design

[SpoilerAlert]

Been doing my first complete run of PoE+WM1&2, and gotten today at the end of the Never Far From the Queen quest, finding casually thr temple ruins entrance while exploring the catacombs for another quest (the one about the old mercenary hearing ghosts). Doing so I basically jumped a step of the quest (First Fires) and this made me feel a bit dazed on the design of this game section: normally games would put a sort of obstacle to avoid people skipping like this (a locked door to open with a key, a catchphrase...), so, which was the dev idea behind this kind of design?

Just being curious, I actually liked the whole thing.