Trying to understand group experience

[port9001]

Feel like I'm missing some key part of how classic EverQuest works because I've often had the experience of joining a group in a popular dungeon (say Unrest main room as a level 18+) and the experience has been an absolute crawl. Worst than I could get solo as a Paladin off in some outdoor area. Is this normal? Seems like there's always a full 6 man group rolling in these spots that barely supports the xp for a trio.

Biggest problem as I see it is the popular spots always have all 6 spots filled with overleveled people, so maximum xp split, and not enough mobs to support having a mob always in camp. So we're all standing around, full mana, wrecking blue cons with 0 risk and very little reward. Is this just normal and expected or do people have a better way to go about this?

I like grouping. I can solo occasionally but I miss the social aspects of chatting with a few people. And dungeons are just more interesting than outdoor zones to me. But 5+ hours per level is excruciating.