I found the dragons annoying, but then the main quest was the second last questline done, so maybe Braggen just got an extra dose of the beasts. Before Dawnguard was installed they followed him everywhere, walking, riding or fast travelling, he turned up in one of the small towns a dragon would turn up as well. The only two times he went to the stables and then into a walled town, he brought a dragon with him to terrorise the populace. He only lost 3 NPC's in the 800 odd hours of play and they were early, he lost almost an entire settlement of Orc's just after the 1.6 patch (Xbox360), but I was not happy and replayed that. Now he only gets dragons that frequently at Lakeview Manor, which is still annoying, but I can live with it. On one playthrough of Hearthfire he got a Legendary Dragon most visits along with other groups of enemies all attacking at the same time, that was too much, I gave up.

My second character is unlikely to ever go far enough in the main quest to wake the dragons, she likes her exploring with no unexpected dragons turning up. The ones she can see are fine, they stay away from towns.

One of my characters I have 27 dragon souls in about 30 hours and I have only been doing faction questlines.

They're not too bad once you get up in the levels. I actually miss their appearances because they become so scarce it seems. I'll go weeks at a time without seeing them, so it's nice being able to fight them now and again; especially the tough ones.

Oblivion gates had the benefit of seldom flying after you.