It's probably an oversimplification, or looking in the wrong place.
My understanding of grinding in Dragon Quest works like this:
Some people cannot beat Super Mario Bros. Beating Super Mario Bros. requires the refinement of skillsets that somee people just don't have, and they have neither the time nor the energy to develop. 40 million copies of SMB were owned in its first print run - how manny do you think ever beat it? How many of those gave up because they just couldn't do it?
Dragon Quest is different in that anyone can beat it. There is no special skill involved here except maybe knowing how to strategically use potions: if you devote enough time, you can beat any Dragon Quest game, no questions asks, and you can beat it into the depths of the earth so that it will never come back and haunt you again. All you need is time.
I thought that grinding in DQ in particular was a conscious design decision, nont the result of a particular cultural predilection toward perfection.
