I have 7 level 99 characters. It’s significantly less of a time investment now. Used to take way more hard work and grinding, like a month or more. I 99’d in a week with tzones and rarely play anymore.
Sounds like a good change for people like me but a bad change for grinders like you. You could always not run them but I'm sure that's not what you'd prefer. Good news is, you can always just play the og if you prefer. Or don't. Plenty of games around to pass the time with.
I don't mean this in a snarky way. It sounds like I do but I don't. Not every change is going to work out for us long time players and it's a bummer when more involved folks have the game changed to upset their play balance.