"This arc sucks without a FB. Where's my FB."
While I wouldn't argue that what Oda is doing ground-breaking, unique and in some cases palatable, what is absolutely does, is make sense.
Yes, you're supposed to go through the majority of this arc saying to yourself, "Self, these are cute vignettes not unlike a Japanese television drama but…where's the pull? Where's the emotion? I feel like I'm missing something."
You are, and it's by design. Oda is showing you the outcome of what happened 20 years ago and skirting the issue of how and why things ended up this way. What's interesting is that for once Luffy isn't in the dark. It's the readers who have no clue why this is happening.
"That isn't my style!"
Okay. We get it. But Oda's doing it this way so that when he does reveal what happened, it's going to be the single connection on a circuit board that connects everything and has a massive emotional impact.
A successful example of this was Drum. Same style minus Luffy being fully clued in. People looooooove Drum. Only difference is, Oda didn't have a maaaaaaaassssssssiiiiiiiivvvvvvveeeeee cast to deal with then so it takes more time.
So if you liked Drum's narrative, you should like this. It's only different because not only is it a bigger cast, you also can't marathon it in realtime which changes your experience a great deal.
If you didn't like Drum...okay then! That's cool! It's not your taste. But it's not 'dumb', it's actually quite complicated.
Anyway, yeah.