For me, the need to long rest is a big one. If the encounters were done right, you shouldn't feel like you need to long rest so much. The idea is to be able to fight hosts of monsters in between each long rest. So, if I am level 1 with a party of 4 and fight 32 Manes, I should at that point feel like I need to long rest. Instead, I fight 3 Imps and need to long rest because they are way too powerful for level 1.
Likewise, I fight 2 phase spiders and 2 ettercaps and need a long rest. It's the only encounter in the Whispering Depths before you fight the boss. So rather than fight a host of baby monsters as I work my way towards the boss, I am only fighting like a single encounter beforehand instead because I'm fighting super tough monsters. Thus, we have fight, long rest, fight, long rest, fight, long rest and super nerfed monsters so you can actually still beat them using the fight, long rest, rinse, repeat method.
Take the hag's lair. Big fight with redcaps that nearly kills you. Long rest. Enter her lair. Fight the masks. DAng! They nearly killed me. I guess I'll have to leave and long rest and then return to face the hag. Otherwise, I can't beat her because the 2... 2 only, mind you... previous encounters were too grand so I couldn't just continue on to face the boss.
