side quest area isn't harder then main story areas? (Cruel)

Weren't side quest areas meant to get substantially harder as you move up through difficulty tiers? "Through Sacred Ground" requires you to go through Fellshrine Ruins and Church Dungeon and both of those zones aren't higher monster level then the main story zones on Cruel difficulty, in fact the Bandit quest which is a main story/required quest is higher level (44 vs 43)!

I thought side quest/optional areas where meant to be like they are in Act 1? Substantially higher Monster Level then the main quest chain. Almost* all the optional areas in Act 1 are at least 3 Monster Levels above the main story zone they are linked to! With one of the zones being 5 levels above the zone it is linked to!

*One zone is only 1 level higher)

I think the only one that fits the description is Fetid Pools lol

- Tidal Island, 3 levels higher then Terraces (Good)
- Fetid Pool is 5 levels higher then Mud Flats (Interesting)
- Flooded Depths is 3 levels higher then Submerged Passage (Good)
- Ship Cave is 1 level higher then Ship Graveyard (Meh)

-Fellshrine Ruins is 1 level higher then Crossroads, Church Dungeon is one level higher then Crossroads. There is no gap greater then 1 level between each zone. There is no difference in difficulty if you're progressively making it harder, in comparison to the difficulty in progressing through the main quests.

-Broken bridge is level 44, 2 higher then cross roads (better/more dramatic increase then the optional stuff? What??).