Your actually not wrong with the reward thing. The strat in the most popular guide is to only go to 200kish GP and if you keep going to save any crates you get until your a higher level.

Though at the end of the day none of that is that critical, like you can always go back later. Yeah it's a little bit more of a pain in the ass but oh well, like by the time you would need to do that you'll probably have alot more figured out.

The big thing really is just that 200kish buffer money. Everything's a pretty huge pain in the ass on the early game as an iron and that money gives you alot more freedom to do whatever you want. Especially when it comes to banging out early game questing. You also get some resources that help out with that too.

In general I really do recommend following a guide up until WT then only loosely following them for quest orders and when you get a little confused. Following optimal guides sucks alot of fun out of the game mode imo.