Well that's nice, not all classes have the luxury of being a druid and doing that. I've not encountered one node in Tol Barad yet that wasn't guarded by something, except for one I got underwater today. The argument about getting XP for having to travel out of the way seems weak to me too. On my skinner, if I'm farming leather, those mobs have to be farmed just as I'd have to farm herbs or ore - I have to go kill something I wouldn't be killing in order to get . Sure, they're just there if you're questing and simply leveling up your skill as you go. But the same could be said for herbs and ore that you encounter too. Sure, if stuff is lower level, and you're mining/herbing, you won't aggro it - but you also likely don't need the XP at that point either.

Also, for people who are slightly over the level cap for outlands or old world, killing the mob isn't worth nearly as much as the herb and ore nodes are with the recent changes to XP once you hit the level cap for a given expansion's content. Last night, I got 1600xp for mining adamantite at level 72. If I'd gone and killed something on my level 72 skinner, I'd have been lucky to get 100xp for the same class of materials.