I do agree that talking, developing relationships is good for a story, but not when there is no or hardly any conflict. The talks don't go deep enough. The talks all tell, but don't show.
Searcher: "I don't want to be an explorer." Which is quite an adult and clear way of communicating for a 15 year old.
Jaeger: "Then you go back, and I'll continue."
And that's that. The conflict is resolved. It's repeated when Ethan and Searcher have the same issue later in the movie.
In the scene in the car between Searcher and Ethan, Searcher tells that Jaeger was a bad father. But that's not something we have seen. We do see that Jaeger is a bit too much and maybe have other ideas, but not something that gives real problems, we do see the compass with the picture of a happy family. The father and son have different ideas, but we don't see that Searcher has really suffered because of it. It might be implied, but if it's up to the audience to fill in the blanks how a character feels, you are missing out in relating to a character.
What the scene in the car does show us is for the second or third time: Searcher and Ethan have a very healthy and good relationship. That makes it a bit unbelievable that Ethan wouldn't want to or is scared to tell his father that he doesn't want to be a farmer. With how their relationship is, it doesn't seem like a problem for Ethan to tell this to Searcher.
Now that I think of it:
Does Searcher, or any of the other characters, have any real flaws?
Maybe Disney isn't necessarily losing out on storytelling. Maybe it's giving characters flaws and making them not perfect.