Agreed, this does not feel like the co-op teamwork feel that D:OS1 had and it is frustrating because my friend and I didn't know this at first and we really don't like it. Share Journal should be default as most people play this as a team, my friend and I often go different ways sometimes to explore but will meet up for dialogues with people when we think there's a quest (what we did in D:OS1 so we didn't miss trait choices, I actually miss that mechanic though and the interaction between characters).
This current system feels more like an MMORPG setting where you just quest at your own pace and play by yourself, not on a team trying to do everything together, it feels very lonely and/or separate, in my opinion. Would love to go back to the 2 man brothers in arms that D:OS1 was... just felt like more of a team effort. At the moment, because he reads faster or gets around places faster than I naturally do, I feel like I'm getting left behind and he doesn't like that either, he used to be able to just do the talking for the two of us and now he has to wait for me to get there or catch up and now he's accidentally/unintentionally leaving me behind.
I think it's fine for solo play as you can't really leave anyone behind there but for group play it makes it feel very weird, when my friend and I worked out we weren't sharing the same journal and weren't getting experience at the same time we were very confused and wondered why anyone would do an RPG like this in that way. Kind of makes you not feel like a real party