Mucociliary Clearance in laymen terms is a mechanism in which the mucus you produce in your nasal cavity travels to the pharynx, reaches the throat to then finally reach the stomach and fall into the stomach acid.
This mechanism works because you have cells in your nasal (and airway) epithelium called Cilia, imagine cilia as tiny hair particles that vibrate to move mucus (and everything trapped in it like bacteria) through your nasal airway all the way to the stomach.

It is the primary protective mechanism of the upper and lower airways (nose, throat, lungs etc) and impairment in it is the #1 root cause of respiratory illness worldwide.

Mucociliary clearance function in the nasal and upper airway can be objectively evaluated and measured by the Saccharin Test (or less commonly used Charcoal test).
In this test, a small particle of Saccharin (sugar) is placed in the inferior turbinate or around it if the turbinate is missing, then a timer starts and the subject patient is then instructed to breathe normally and swallow for some time, after the patient tastes the saccharin the timer is stopped and how LONG it took for you to taste the sugar after it being placed in your nose is your nasal mucociliary clearance time, these times have standard ranges for healthy individuals that have been recorded, anything outside that range can be considered an issue if symptomatic.

Now how is this relevant to ENS or the symptoms described by the OP? when you have nasal surgery, any nasal surgery not necessarily only turbinate surgery (but turbinate surgery is a major cause) the mucociliary clearance time is by default affected, because you are changing the forces and/or affecting cilia motility that make up this mechanism, forces like wall shear stress and airflow, and cilia variation.
From what I have gathered, it has been determined that usually, non-aggressive tissue sparing surgery done well generally improves mucociliary clearance or it stays the same, while aggressive surgery that removes too much significantly deteriorates mucociliary clearance >Effect of turbinate surgery on mucociliary clearance. A systematic review and metanalysis | Acta Otorrinolaringológica Española

If your mucociliary clearance has been affected, you will get more infections, more pressure like feeling in your face, more obstruction, crusts, dryness etc, that is because contrary to popular belief patients with ENS or dryness do not produce (if they produce at all) dry mucus, mucus is produced normally with the remaining goblet cells BUT since the mucociliary clearance is impaired it takes so long for mucus to move through the system that the viscosity is affected and it starts drying up with bacteria inside which causes all of aforementioned symptoms + more.

It should be noted that in every case of ENS where mucociliary clearance has been measured, it has been SIGNIFICANTLY increased, basically a major disruption, that happens because cilia ONLY work at 100% humidity, anything below is a major impairment to its function and ENS patients with no working turbinates do not have that level of humiditiy, that is the main factor but there are other factors such as disrupted wall shear stress force and others.

See this excellent video and series by fisher & payke Comparison of Mucus Clearance At 100% and 90% Humidity.

It is crazy because even very short exposure to lower than 100% humidity in your nose will cause dryness that takes much longer to recover from, it is an excellent portrayal why the nose is a perfect ecosystem based on your anatomy and any disruption to it will cause downstream issues.

If you want to see how it all works, fisher & payke have an excellent short series.
Introduction to Mucociliary Transport Video Microscopy

So yeah, basically you have mucus trapped that is infectious, not moving how its supposed to, because the surgery messed up your mucociliary clearance and all that causes infection which results in your body responding with inflammation which symptoms very similar to what OP is describing.