Difficulty of the game and time to reach high level

Hi,

First of all, this will sound like me bitching about PSO2, but these have been my rather decent impressions after playing a while (lv 16- something now) and I'm kinda looking for some reassurance here. TL;DR below.

I played tons of PSO1 back in the day and after a few hours of playing this I'm getting a bad feeling about the (lack of) difficulty.

I know, a few hours is nothing. Normal difficulty in PSO didn't do much, either. But I just can't help but feel very underwhelmed by the standard monsters and their complete lack of aggression, especially when I read that this doesn't change at all through Very hard (in PSO at least they got much faster). I got to the Caves and the enemies still leave me wondering "What are they actually trying to do?", as interesting as some of them look.

I googled around and hear that on Super/Extra hard the game does get challenging - back on a level of PSO1 where squishies could get 1- or 2 shotted. Others have replied to similar complaints that they should do all sorts of time trial challenges, but I don't consider time limits a fun mechanic.

I'm really "wanting to want" to continue on, but I feel it's just my nostalgia pushing me at this point. I loved stuff in PSO1 like Endless Nightmare quests, fighting several Sinow Beats at once - real pressure. Then again, PSO2's movement options would've made that easier, too. I'm also missing the big arenas and unique rooms. The map design in PSO2 so far has been pretty uninspiring. Long, randomized tunnels instead of the big labyrinths. Forest's boss was also just a joke compared to PSO's Dragon. (unless that wasn't the boss? I wasn't even sure at first)

TL;DR: A few hours in and I feel this will just be an easy grindfest. How long does it take to get to the juicy difficulty, if there is any?