yeah it is essentially a grind game, cannot deny that.
however nobody is forcing you to grind inspirationals, the only ones which are REALLY a grind are skills like murder which you don't NEED, nessarily. its a sandbox, only get the skills you want to get to play how you want to play.
secondly it didn't take me too long to aquire ALL the skills on my previous main characters, I never even used many of them. if you know the game well you can level up 50 times quicker than someone new, theres more to it than simple time investment. something I personally like, since I have lost a couple max'd characters to resets and death.
I got all skills except a few (murder & horticulture such) in a week or so. well before I completed building my abode. you'll find the game actually kind of gets boring once you have no more skills to study for. especially if nobody is trying to kill you.
ALSO in the future when purity is added back in proper form expect grind to be reduced substantially, providing you have access to it. already you can get high purity metals and make lockets that give something like 800000 points of c&d.
people will make out alt characters in a day with enough of the best foods/inspirationals in game. which is of paramount importance in a perma death game, the ability of a village to make new warrior characters determines its true power on the battlefield. the games wars are determined as much in ecconomy as the actual battlefield.
