Don't mind the quests myself. Something different to the usual routine of collecting etc. Quests should represent some kind of challenge (albeit fairly) and shouldnt always be a walk in the park. We all have a limited number of things to spend our FP's on - this means we have to prioritise and use some type of strategy. Sometimes we may have to be patient.
That said, I am only in the progressive era, and I have 14m gold and 3.5m supplies. I dont know if its common, I would guess so...this to me suggests the game as a whole is probably too easy to gather resources IMHO.
No doubt quests should provide some challenge, but it should be worth it at the end and it should not interfere with the players desire on how to play the game. So far quests in FoE seems more of a tool to give you the right direction and guide you thru the map and tech tree; let you know if you are too far ahead, or leaving behind with either provinces or technologies. But some quests are just ridiculous and poorly designed, one would even say the one who did the quests has no clue what he is doing.
Back to topic and our dear princess Myciena. I had a look on the industrial age map, where specific tactics are required and negotiation goods are expensive and i was advised by fellow players that riflemen can be well worth it, so i decided ill just place two barracks of that type to fulfill the reQuest and make the best use of them.
Fast forward few quests(i noticed another player commented on the topic is on the same quest) and there we go, another irrelevant quest by Myciena. This time her majesty suggests i should lay siege on Grand Gap(last colonial province), which i already did, but that doesnt bother me. She is again greedy in her request and requires me to have not one, but two camp of either Field Gun, Cannon, or Trebuchets. Its alright, any player should have siege camp, but why two? Especially when we are talking about the Col province and once done those troops become useless; no clue why cannons and trebuchetes are even in the equation. I seriously hope at the end there is some reward for the troubles, those quests were forced to me after all.
TL;DR those quests make no sense, you cant skip and so far the reward would barely cover 10-20% of the investment, no matter if you follow the right age succession and only in extreme cases where the player actually decided beforehand to operate with those buildings, it would be worth it.