Has anyone else found that when they have a weapon that has a cone or AOE (like a grenade) they are being forced to target an enemy to shoot it. This often means that rather than throw my grenade intot he middle of a group and hit everyone I have to throw at one target and only him the 1 mob standing next to him as well. Is there any way to over come this or is it just "working as designed" i.e. not very well.

Yeah it's always been like that with the exception of some melee attacks, obviously grenades would require a whole new ground targetting system to use without targetting an enemy first.
As for cone attacks it could be done without a target, but I have a feeling it could cause issues during PVP with the lag and all, as I noticed using melee attacks that don't require targets were a complete pain in the arse to hit anything with during PvP with everyone constantly moving.