I guess that's just how F2P goes in games where most content is P2P.

GW2 has actually had remarkably little powercreep compared to other games, but even so, there's still enough that players without a glider, mounts, elite specs, etc will struggle to keep up.

I wish there was a way for players to reduce their own power in OW in exchange for slightly increased rewards, even if those rewards were account bound. Most players would go for this (I think) and it would reduce how much stuff gets obliterated in seconds without making players feel like they got nerfed.

The drawback of game being based on horizontal progression is that at this point when you reach level 80 you have to find your own goals, if that's getting ascended gear, leveling and learning new classes, farming gold, unlocking skins or something else.

Maybe getting the living story and expansions would be a good next step since it adds more story content and open world maps to play through, as well as more friendly instanced content in form of strike missions and eventually raids (once you're ready to tackle them).

And yeah fractals are fun but people tend to speedrun them a lot since most people are experienced with them. Try clarifying in your LFG that you want to learn and practice instead of speedrun.