For those who have finished the game, go back to your saves and load the one marked "milestone" should be just before you did the last mission so you can just continue doing stuff with your smith and Dagna.
Hissing Wastes does seem a bit pointless but I love it, The tomb quest is definitely one of my favourite side quests in the entire game and the end fight against the dragon is also my favourite out of all the dragons. The game as a whole is so much more enjoyable when you accept that a lot of it is making your own adventure, really role playing.
I was thinking this today after beating the game for a second time....you can SO tell that this started off as being designed as an MMORPG, you would've thought they'd have re-designed more stuff when they decided that it was going to be a single player game.
Each unto their own, I still dig the game.