I really don't mind quicktime events as long as the game doesn't have like one or two they just throw in there randomly to throw people off. I came to like the quicktime events in Resident Evil 4 because they came frequently and kept me on the edge of my seat during cutscenes in case something were to happen.
One thing that did irritate me about the game, though, was that for essentially the same event (evading an undead knight's axe, for instance), some times they would use different buttons, which threw me off as these sections were infrequent.
As for escort missions, if the NPC doesn't die in one hit, I'm fine with them. An example of good escort missions can be found in FreeSpace 2, where the ship you escorted more often than not was a massive destroyer capable of defending itself and being able to take massive hits of damage, and when the escort wasn't a massive destroyer, the enemies were less potent. Resident Evil 4's escort sections didn't mind me much, either, as Ashley was pretty much an extended back most of the time. One thing that I didn't like about those, however, was that Ashley would die if you accidentally shot her in the hair with a single TMP bullet.
Grinding is the single most painful aspect of gaming I can think of. That, and starting out with a boring first mission then immediately getting to the meat of the game in the second.
