I would suggest you play the best games that the JRPG genre has to offer before you play Octopath. Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7, and Dragon Quest 8 blow the Bravely/Octo games out of the water. Chrono Trigger is the best of them, due to not wasting the player's time like most JRPGs do.

Octopath is its own beast, aside from similar but not quite the same combat.

The game goes for a much more serious and retro feel, where as Bravely was retrospect but with steps to innovation including the misaligned cycle system at the back half. Honestly despite people keep bringing up FF6, I would say that the game is closer to a DQ style story of short arcs but with no connecting big story arc to bridge it all. It is a good game but I do think one review put it best this is a side game and it will wear on you if you are going full bore at it because of everything being similar.

That's what excessive grinding is though on your first point. Optional dungeons should remain optional. It's a huge game breaker now that we have reached 2018.  This kind of archaic game design should have died out in the NES era.  I just wish Japanese rpg game developers realized by now of all times that maybe people don't want to spend every waking hour playing the game walking 5 steps encounter, walking 5 steps encounter etc.  Yeah there might be a way to reduce the encounter rate, but if it's necessary to grind to get past certain areas then why bother reducing the encounter rate? 

How do the chapters in OT work?  If you're doing someone else's path, you can just go to another's path and that previous character will level up?  How about the rest of the characters?

 Excessive grinding can be a tiring process and be a roadblock for more gamers than not.  Or at the very least it can wear some down to the point they just stop playing the game after realizing how much more grinding they'd have to do. 

If you start a chapter for one character there is a mechanic that lets you stop leave that area and start or resume another character's chapter. Leveling up is just through battles so if you are not using a character in battle they stay at whatever level you acquired them.  

JRPGs didn't become super popular until Final Fantasy 7.  However there was a very passionate group of niche gamers that really loved the NES/SNES/Genesis era of RPG.  Games like Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler are really for that passionate niche, or for younger people who would have been in that niche if they were given the chance.  These games are definitely not for everyone, but many of the people who play them like the grind as long as the combat system is good and the monsters are well designed and so on.  I remember the first time I played Final Fantasy Tactics I would grind all the time and I just really had a blast.

Passionate is the politically correct word on that front >.>

FF tactics is a different beast though as a SRPG.  Every battle felt like you were constantly getting stronger and gaining points you could use soon, and it had an emphasis on distance between characters.  You could also prolong the battles to make more gains without having to end it and then start another one; thus every action netted you rewards and not just ending battles.  If JRPGS on the 16 bit era would just take into account a better balance of number of battles to get into , with  more to gain per battle they would have a better reputation on the mainstream front.  Maybe do a design more like Chrono Trigger too instead of an omnipresent encounter rate.  I don't know if it's coincidence or not, but it's like there's this dogma that for 16 bit era RPGs you can't have a relaxing encounter rate, or if not that you can't be allowed to progress relatively quickly.  I found out that for FF7 the JP version has a higher encounter rate than the US version.  Whoever made that decision for the US version may have well made the best decision ever for the FF franchise considering how important FF7 was to introducing RPGS to people, not just JRPGs.

You make some good points.  I think the main problem with "grinding" is the repetitive nature of it.  If you are in a weak area and just hit attack 4 times to end the battle then that is boring.  In FF Tactics you still had to think a little even on the "easy" random encounters.  So fewer battles that are more challenging and more rewarding is a better idea than many battles that are quick but give little reward.  Basically, it doesn't feel like such a grind if the battle system is made to be interesting.

I don't think the problem is turn-based combat, but quick, repetitive, mindless combat.