I might have missed the part where the party work out he is up to no good (how do they do this?), but it just seems very odd that we end up fighting and defeating him, and then in the text afterwards, there is no reference to this at all, he's just back as the boss of the caravan and blaming us. No mention about the fact that we just defeated him in combat.
The post-scenario "Development" text explicitly says that you see him fitting ill-gotten gains into his pockets, and the next scenario starts with you unveiling his ill dealings to the mayor of Belhaim.
I will say that I agree that the connection between gameplay and story is particularly weak in this specific scenario (compared to other post-Core scenarios - especially those in Curse of the Crimson Throne, which generally feels like the scenario powers and the like are very well tied into the story being told). The reason for that is that 1* is the absolute introductory scenario for all players, both those new to Core and those new to PACG in general, so it features no scenario power or unique villain that is otherwise complex or tricky in nature.
A more thematic scenario may have featured an Evidence story bane as the villain (a card from Curse of the Crimson Throne), with a scenario power that summons a Bandit if you fail to defeat the Evidence (representing Silas Gribb trying to distract you or drag you away from it). Better yet, instead of summoning a Bandit it would summon a henchman that only had non-combat checks to defeat, like Stealth and Charisma.
But all of these things - including henchmen/villains that need to be defeated with a specific skill rather than combat - would be bad for introducing new players to the game with, due to the respective difficulty or complexity.
Plus, the Core Set uses "non-specific" story banes (generic names like "Vampire" and "Bandit" and "Kobold Champion") so that the cards in the Core Set can be integrated into all sets moving forward smoothly. Unfortunately, as a side-effect the specific henchmen and villains are noticeably less thematic to the story going on as they are in Curse of the Crimson Throne (where every named villain/henchmen tends to be a completely unique card in its own right).
I assume the Dragon's Demand storyline is an adaptation of an RPG story, so they're keeping the story true-to-form while fiddling with the game mechanics to better ease people in and provide a good mechanical experience first and foremost. That's my reading of it, anyway.
If the gameplay-story interaction matters really strongly to you, I'd probably recommend Curse of the Crimson Throne a bit higher. Even the Core Set/Dragon's Demand does get better as it moves forward, though - 1C is particularly thematic, for example.
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When you encounter the Bandit, he's stealing directly from you (recharging and/or burying and/or banishing your cards). You don't have to fight him at all: just let him take some of your stuff to "defeat" him (by banishing a boon). Or, you can object to him taking your stuff and have a combat.
As Yewstance says, the story and mechanics of this particular scenario were much fiddled with to provide a good demo/intro scenario experience. The story is a little more shored up from 1A onwards.