payn
Glory to Marik
Actually, I think it does the opposite. PF1 used a nuanced XP system and the APs shoehorned a milestone system into it. Which, is why you had tons of pointless boring encounters peppered in. PF2 was designed for milestone play and shoe horned an XP system into it, which is why its not satisfying to old school minded players.The problem with it is it carries over to a lot of, honestly, trash encounters that aren't that interesting. Mind you, they still serve some purpose because they remind people that their characters really are Big Damn Heroes (which can fail to happen with serious encounters where you're really having to work it for some people), but it also consumes time which doesn't necessarily do those adventure paths any favors in many cases.
I agree. The modern take is a move the game along on milestone/plot points position and not dwell on open exploration and episodic adventures one. PF1 does the latter better becasue it still leaned closer to that style of play. That shifted with PF2, making the latter much more difficult.(My personal opinion is that, even though I'm much more tolerant of modern design than older D&D design, from 3e on most versions of D&D and its offshoots like PF are not really well suited to older style dungeons because the advancement is too swift (this might be somewhat less true with D&D5e because of the way it tries to compress power level, but it was certainly true of 3e and 4e and bother versions of PF.)