(FWIW, I'm someone with around a hundred hours in the game)
I agree with you on the point it was decent even before 2.0 and that there's missing features. If you're on PC though, there's a lot of mechanics added in by mods too!
Everything is the same difficulty if you're level 1, 15 or 50.
it's a great game from that perspective and side missions are great in expansion