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The reason why Mass Effect works the way it does is because it truly isn't open world despite giving you a fair amount of freedom to explore and go to whatever planet you want. It's somewhat non-linear, but not open world. Truly open world games tend to be less focused because they give the player far more freedom. Too much in fact. It's easy to get distracted in larger games with 100+ hours of content. Andromeda is a good example of this even though the bulk of the missions do have something to do with the main story to some degree. Either its about repairing or building diplomatic relationships or its about repairing the biospheres of the planets so they can be colonized. Mass Effect 3 for example has a limited number of missions on a given world and some of the areas aren't very big. ME2 is practically a corridor shooter at times. The narrative is much tighter in something like Mass Effect.
It's also a much smaller game which works to its credit. In ME3, you have three or four missions per planet that all tie into the main planetary story. Your side missions and optional content are done in the name of helping people out by responding to distress signals or doing things that would benefit the war, but ultimately, the reason why Mass Effect feels this way is simply because its a smaller and more streamlined game. Pure and simple. They are roughly 30-45 hours in length and pale in comparison to the scope of Andromeda, the Witcher III, or Cyberpunk 2077.
You are not wrong in that it's possible to do the narrative better with Cyberpunk 2077 where you could have a reason to do all this other crap before going into your main mission. Andromeda had too much side content, but at least all of its missions were about preparing and repairing the biosphere of the planets and fixing the cockup that was the Milky Way species' introduction to the Andromeda galaxy and its inhabitants.
I'm not dismissing it. Actually, the only reason Rogue talks to V is because V gives her 15,000 credits to find Hellman. You hire her, not the other way around. You can actually talk to her later on after establishing a report with her. The conversation is about getting jobs and she tells you that your reputation is **** because you ****ed up your one job with Dex. She more or less tells you that while you are good at what you do, she won't be seen giving you the good jobs given your rep. She does give you missions when you are out running around, albeit they are low end jobs that could be done by almost anyone.
Yeah, I know. I've played through the game twice. I'm simply stating that the way this is presented and the way the game constantly selects this for you is annoying. Again, the sense of urgency makes you want to talk to her quickly, but the game tells you its the point of no return. Yet, you have to get here fairly early on in the story as the chain leading up to it is only about a third of the main story.
And yes, it is gating. You have to reach that point before you can do any of the other missions for Johnny and Rogue. It's just weird how its put together. That's my point. I think this could have been handled better. For one thing, I hate how it defaults to this quest whenever you complete anything else. You also can't unselect it without modding the game.