Thanks for going into it a bit more!
We definitely don't want people feeling miserable if they didn't play for a day. The current quest system will let you bank up to 3 quests, so you only have to play every three days for totally optimal XP. We have ideas on how we'd take this further in the future if needed.
How much quests warp gameplay and in what ways is something we have thought about a lot. We've tried to make our quests generally aligned with winning, though if you're REALLY min-maxing them, it can still lead to some odd plays. We're trying to strike a balance for the people who love them as inspiration to try something new or only want to play a couple games a day (this is a lot of players), and those who'd rather play their own way no matter what.
While it doesn't totally solve the feeling that there's value on the table, our game-win XP is very high relative to quests compared to genre norms. Hopefully this helps at least a little.