Hehe Shrike, I was about to post about the exact same things. I am now clearing out the 1st dungeon in the Battlefields in Act II and the boredom factor is steadily increasing. I am level 17 too and have been consistently facing mobs 7-8 levels below mine for an ungodly amount of hours.
With their random loot engine you'd think they'd expand it to the mobs too, increasing their level dynamically as my characters progress, but I don't see this happening. I don't know how much longer I'll keep bottom-feeding like that.
It's not like I was cheating or anything. I've been doing what the game allowed me to do. Purposedly leaving areas of the map unexplored is not an option, as is using lower grade equipment. On of the biggest draws of this kind of game is the search of phat lewt because let's face it, with the way quests are designed and presented we don't actually quest in BD, we randomly kill things until we stumble upon a quest mob or item. Remove the search of loot and character progression then what's left, 3 seconds-long mob encounters?
Now there is the option of NOT doing the BF dungeons and quests. But in Act I they were like half the game, won't the game become too short if I don't do the BF? I won't mind skipping them now that I come to think of it, they have nothing to do with the story, they are clearly designed as training grounds, are not that fun to be honest, and seem to be the main reason why I stopped enjoying the game. Back to the mainland I guess.
Yet it hurts me to know that I may leave some blacked out areas on some maps. Maybe there is a patch in the works that would make mobs levels dynamic?