Started playing around the Shadowbringers release and have been playing very casually on and off since. I just finally beat the post ARR quests and I can confirm it does indeed get better now that I'm in Heavesward. The problem is it's just a slog to push through the boring quests to get too the good stuff. Besides that the rest of the game is really fun with lots of different side activities to work on when the main quest gets too boring.