Guild Wars 2

Before I begin let me first state that I have completed the story 1 way with 1 character, an Asuran engineer. I am playing Guild Wars 2, as I played Guild Wars, for the story. The extra MMO-lite stuff does not concern me. My opinions are based on this experience.
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So I completed the story including the final dungeon and was fairly disappointed with the overall activity and structure found in the story missions. The majority of the missions were:
hear some dialogue
kill a pack or two of guys
hear some more dialogue
end mission

This is actually quite similar to Guild Wars apart from how short these missions are. In Guild Wars you’d have to traverse a fair section of the map in your quest for killing things and listening to dialogue, not so in GW2. However, there were a few notable exceptions to this in GW2 which shows some sparks of potential that were not taken advantage of.

Example #1
Priory Mission 1
The very first priory mission has you traverse a large chasm while the wind howls at your back. You have to make it across by watching the cloth physics on the flags and banners around to know when to move. If you mis-time it you get blown off the bridge. Later in the mission you have to navigate through the ruins via platforming.

This was an awesome mission. You have fighting, you had a unique mechanic, you had platforming! It was quite short but what there was, was awesome.

Example #2
Sunken Temple
In this mission you went in solo with a manta ray assassin lady and completed a series of challenges that would open a door to the next area complete with “Zelda-esque” camera that zooms in to show you were the door you unlocked was. Good camera work and multi-tiered structure made it an interesting place to be and the series of challenges gave a good feeling of progression through the mission. (many of the other missions are something like defeat x waves of dudes, no real sense of progression)

Example #3
Bosses
Most bosses have a unique tactic that adds an additional layer the your fight with them. The Eye of Zhaitan for example goes through waves such as having to dodge his projectiles (non-homing projectiles that you can move out of the way of without using the actual dodge roll), avoid several aoe fields to reach him, and one giant death laser that requires good timing to dodge (this time with the actual dodge roll). This was by far the most interesting and engaging fight in the game and since you were solo (unlike big map bosses such as jormag’s claw or shatterer) you feel like you’re contributing to the fight. A great feeling for the player.

These are very cool things, things you’d think ANet would want to show off more.

So given how awesome a few of these missions are, it just makes the rest seem disappointing. Why couldn’t we have more utilization of terrain in missions (and don’t even get me started on that invulnerability mechanic…)? Why not add in more environmental hazards to mix things up? Why not have more in-game camera work as opposed to those JRPG face to face text boxes? Why not have more interesting battles with enemies with their own unique attack patterns that require specific tactics on the part of the player other than dodge roll and kite?

The potential is there, and it shines through a few times during the story, I just wish ANet had let it come all the way out.

tl;dr
Awesome, standout events and mechanics happen in the story… ~3 times. Why not more when the capability is clearly there?

Would like some discussion about this. Thoughts? Other missions that I didn’t play that had awesome things happen in them that you wish had happened more often?