I feel like you're technically right, but it's funny, I don't like SMT because I play Persona for that dialogue, so I'd replay a Persona game once every few years and pick all different S-Links, but I feel like desiring pure gameplay goodness and thinking about Persona at all is sort of antithetical to what makes Persona different from other games.

in that Persona feels more like it has dungeons and battling strictly to provide contrast and variety from the dialogue and not because it's worth it in its own right.