Mark and Recall is genuinely useful if you build around it - not a gimmick at all, but yeah, most people sleep on it. The thing is you need to actually commit to using it. Mark a spot before you leave a strider, then Recall back when you're done exploring. Saves you from having to navigate back to a dock or waiting for the next departure. It's more about convenience than necessity.
For planning routes without trial-and-error, honestly just bite the bullet and talk to the strider operators / boat captains before committing. They'll tell you where they go. Write down the major hubs - Balmora, Vivec, Ald'ruhn - and plan backwards from your destination. If a cave is in the middle of nowhere, you're probably walking the last leg no matter what, and that's intentional. The game wants you to explore rather than teleport directly to objectives.
The "friction" is real but it's not bad design - it's environmental storytelling. You notice the landscape, run into random encounters, find things you weren't looking for. Skyrim's fast travel kind of kills that. Morrowind respects your time more than it first appears because you're not spending 40 minutes staring at loading screens; you're actually moving through the world.
That said, if you're genuinely sick of it, there's mods that add more strider routes or teleport services. But I'd push through at least one full playthrough without them. The friction becomes part of the rhythm once you stop fighting it.
