There's something to be said for this. I tried dropping subtle hints for my players about faction machinations and it went nowhere. I was expecting them to put the pieces together, but I probably didn't do a great job with the hints and they don't care enough. So I started hitting them over the head with it. We're all happier.

There's some famous DM who said something like "you spend dozens of hours a week in your world, your players just drop in for a visit once a week".

EDIT: They suggested having a list of secrets that can be discovered during each scene. As long as the party does something reasonable to discover a secret, reveal it. ie, maybe it's evesdropping in the gobbos playing cards, maybe it's digging through the trash, maybe it's Detect Thoughts, but have a bunch of clues on hand that you're trying to give the players. That moves the story forward and rewards initiative.

I'm not criticizing having NPCs being realistic with off-plot antics. But at my table, that slowed down a campaign.