I do realise that there will be areas of higher level etc, rather akin to a MMORPG, but that wasn't really the case here.

Surely someone has played through that bit that I have commented on and can explain to me quite why that bit was so much harder, even though it seemed obvious to me that this was still supposed to be a minor starter quest.

I just got the feeling it was a poorly worked out part of the game and was assumed that I would have gone off and done a few more bits before getting to that point, and I was wondering if there were any more bits of the game like that?