Yeah, even with my 80 dragging around my warlock in group, I still hit 80 on him in Sholazar Basin. This is with him starting at 70 when he went to howling fjord and running only nexus and utgarde keep pre-80.

The problem is that if you don't do the collections, you'll be missing probably 75% of the quests because so many of 'em follow the "Do Two Quests For Me And Come Back And I'll Give You Two More" model. Just no way around it that I can see.