What did I learn about 8 patches long Trailblaze missions?
More patches means more characters to shill.
Just because the story is long, doesn't mean that the characters in it are more important than characters in side stories. Every of them will have the same ending and become irrelevant anyway. Huohuo or Topaz is more memorable despite having only one side story chapter, because she didn't need to share screentime or objective with anyone else.