EagleScoutmano

Absolutely- Athletics, Acrobatics, and the related "Speed" attribute are a major QoL improvement as you raise them; being able to go everywhere quickly, and being able to outrun enemies (who altogether too frequently run away), and being able to run across mountainsides basically without risk... Being able to jump over obstacles, and so much more- acrobatics is one of the skills that I would consider top tier. It and athletics are the S-Tier or at minimum A-Tier skills from the thief line of skills.

Across over 1,000 hours of Skyrim playtime, I have never once completed this quest.

That being said- Skyrim's economy is wack; you go from never having enough gold in levels 1-25, to having just about enough in 25-30... Then the narrows start being populated by draugr deathlords, who always drop one (or two) ebony weapons... And the economy is tanked. Suddenly, you are swimming in gold; a ten minute run through a dungeon will pull 10k+, and you can't find enough merchants to unload on...

Even worse is if you really push alchemy/enchanting- you can craft individual potions worth tens of thousands of gold, from ingredients that are worth a couple hundred... Same thing with enchanting. The highest value item I have ever crafted was worth over 100k, due to absurdly high smithing & enchanting through exploits.

I struggle to understand how the path, which leads directly forward from the end of the bridge out of Riverwood, is even remotely hidden. You would have to be intentionally NOT exploring the landscape to not have taken that path.