This is pretty much my main issue with pathfinder. Gold is ubiquitous so if flying is priced reasonably then everybody can expect to acquire it through their preferred playstyle. Pathfinder is just a list of objectives that have to be fulfilled in a very specific manner.
Forcing people to participate in content they’d never normally do isn’t exactly a recipe for success. The devs seem to operate under the impression that if you make the incentives too large to ignore in order to get people to participate in different types of content that the player will eventually come around to having fun. From personal experience, that is most definitely not the case. The feeling of “reward” is damaged greatly by the journey required to achieve it.