Underleveled posted...
The quest itself might not be dumb, but in Tales of the Abyss, obtaining Natalia's best move has an insanely small window of availability and requires the player to go somewhere that they have no other reason to go at that point in the game and with no hint that they should go there at that point. Once you see the very next cutscene, it's gone forever. In fact, for a long time players wondered how to get this move and it was ultimately discovered by a player fucking up and going there by accident during the window of opportunity. THAT is dumb.
I love Tales of the Abyss, but my mind went here too. One of the few nitpicks I have is just how stupid the side quest setup is at times and this is easily the worst example of it.
I'm hoping for an HD remaster similar to what Symphonia is getting and that they rectify this by putting that quest in a logical place.