Well, if you can get by without cooking, that's fine. I don't use vending machines personally so don't see anything from there to offset cooking and traders often either don't have any food or only have a couple of things that you'll burn through in under a day. I have no reason not to cook and I think most players are cooking, so that's something that isn't really an issue for most people, I think. Besides, I think most players wouldn't want to live off canned food all game even if they can. You just have to eat way too much of it, imo. Far better to live off real food and only eat a small number of times per day. But that's up to the player. Cooking is easy so I don't see any reason to avoid it. If you like buying everything, then that's a viable option and there should be options. I will say that if you increase loot abundance or air drops, you can end up getting more food than you can use and will be able to stop cooking by mid game. On the other hand, you can also reduce those and it'll be more challenging if that's what you like.
Nothing is keeping you in the forest biome other than yourself. Most players aren't going to stay there all game and so the game doesn't necessarily need to give any additional incentive to go to the other biomes, imo. I wouldn't mind more reasons to explore the wilderness, though.
Also, remember that this game isn't just one genre but a mix of many. It isn't a survival crafting game any more than a looter shooter game. It is a combination of many genres that are all being intertwined into its own "genre". There will be options to play the game using a variety of combinations of these different genres. If you want to play it as a looter shooter, you can. If you want to craft, you can. They are at least attempting to make it more survival oriented, even if it's not working that well. Not every way of playing will be represented or equally balanced. This is more of a co-op or single player game than a PVP game even if you can play PVP. So they don't need to make every way of playing equal. If it takes longer to progress when doing things one way than when doing things another way, that isn't really a big deal. People just like to be as fast (or faster) than everyone else even if they choose an option that wouldn't necessarily need to be as fast.
I don't mind the game in SP at all except that I have played it enough to find SP kind of boring. I prefer having someone to talk to and work with while playing the game. I find it's more enjoyable that way. But I still don't have any problems with SP.
I think a main thing to consider is this... If you want to cook, you clearly can. If you aren't cooking because you are buying stuff instead, then it's a good indication that you don't actually like cooking. If you did like cooking, you'd be choosing that option rather than buying stuff. The same thing for other things in the game. As I said, crafting costs are an issue that can prevent you from wanting to craft higher tier stuff, so that's a bit limiting but other than that, if you enjoy crafting, you can surely do so. If you choose not to, then you probably don't really enjoy it. And the game shouldn't force you to do these things if you want to do something else. It is interesting seeing people complain that something like traders removes a lot of the game and that there are restrictions or that players are being forced to play a certain way and yet they are asking for the same thing - that the option to use traders for these things be removed or nerfed so players are forced to play a certain way.