I wanted to comment on the notion that "the story determines when you get rests." In D&D, I find that notion the DM equivalent of "it's what my character would do."
As a DM in traditional play, you create the environment. You make the rooms, deploy the monsters, and set any time limits on what's happening. The "story" only exists because of what you've created. So if an adventuring day becomes 12 encounters, that's largely because of what you did. And like everything I write, if you and your players are having fun, who am I to gripe about it? The only thing I can say is: it's you who's making that decision (especially with time concerns) and largely not your players. Of course there are always those players who are ready to roll for one more room, even when they are spent, and god love 'em.
There are other ways to play than traditional D&D play. There's "emergent play," and "play to find out, err ... play," and those are traditionally found in the PbtA world.
Those games typically aren't about tactical combat. I can't think of a single PbtA or FitD game that is (although I'd like to try it if it exists!) You can resolve entire combats, or even multiple combats, with a single die roll. In Blades in the Dark, we had a game where the GM had us make a Positioning Check (it's the first part of a Score, where you determine where you pick up with active play) and then narrated how we had half a dozen fights before we got to the locked door we were looking for. That's ... not how D&D is commonly played.
As a player in D&D, you're always concerned with resources and the adventuring day, as long as you're playing a character who has resources that reset on Rests. That's whether the DM is concerned with them or not. "What can I afford to do here? Is this encounter worth using another spell slot? Is my Action Surge worth it to use so early in the day?" ... and so on.
What is all this rambling about? Just that when you create an adventuring site, you're naturally making one or more adventuring days. And if you're creating something your players can't be expected to do, it's in the same light as the player who attacks the guards because it's what their character would do.