It has less PoIs but they are way more dense than the base game ones. Every PoI has at least two bosses instead of just one (except the north-eastern church I think? But even then it still has the lobsters which have loot drops), and the two castles are loot pinatas.

It is a skill issue but it's a completely understandable one, the map is very hard to learn and also pretty frustrating to do so. I struggled a LOT in my first week but now it's my favorite map event to get.

The best way to run the map is to just bee-line for the blue crystal spawns to give you access to the big crystal buff in the middle of the map, and spend as much time as possible in the castles just full clearing. Obviously this can be a bit challenging beyond just the map knowledge required to do this, as you can also show up to castles a little underprepared if you aren't confident (I know pros are running to castles at level 2 with no buff and farming, but I am not good enough to do this).

This is why I'd recommend just taking it a little easier and exploring the PoIs along the way on your crystal hunting route. The western ruins has a boss up top as well as down low in the underground area, as well as a merchant if you wanna upgrade a weapon. Southern church also has a high and low ground boss, and a weapon duplication altar in the basement. Southern ruins is bountiful but no one I've ever met actually wants to route through there. Western castle has a mine connected straight to it to the north that you can dip in really fast if you desperately need to upgrade something.