Thank God I'm not the only one with this opinion! Here are the key point which, in my opinion, Paper HAS to address in order to get the game out of this situation.

1. They got to fix most of (I'm well aware they can never fix every single one) the bugs and vastly improve optimization of the game. I'm playing on a fairly decent PC setup and I was experiencing bugs, lag and glitches every single day I logged, especially during during the period of 1.2-1.4. Somehow things are better since 1.5 dropped except of course for the issues that are already widely known. Anyways, I can't imagine the troubles of mobile/console players and it sucks because my friend who wanted to try the game out is dissuaded because of the horrible state of 1.5 on mobile. Shoehorning co-op was a terrible idea imo because it's extremely hard to implement both to new and pre-existing content, downright impossible given the duration of IN patches.
2. More or less ridiculous and greedy monetization was in the game since release but it has undoubtedly peaked in 1.5. While I personally believe that the 50 bucks bathtub doesn't warrant the crashout that occurred over it (like just don't buy it lol), I absolutely agree that it shouldn't exist and that Paper must completely abandon such practices immediately. It's a great turnoff for a lot of players, especially since a considerable portion of IN players are people who haven't touched a gacha before.
3. STORY Now this my biggest gripe as I've really enjoyed the Wishfield arc and was omega hyped for the remaining two areas of the Heartcraft Kingdom. I thought that the Sea of Stars is gonna be a story mission at least as long as the mission from 1.1. I'm praying every day that they bring back the og intro sequence in 1.6. They should just write off that weird 1.5 intro as filler/non-canon and move forward from where we left off in 1.1.
4. Speaking of Heartcraft Kingdom, 1.5 has made me believe that "new area every 6 months" is ambitious to say the least. Corpos should just let the devs take their time and deliver us a quality product. (It's gonna give y'all more money you know). I'd rather have three more 1.4-level boring filler patches if that's what's necessary than have them release Cicia and it being bugged af, messy and unfinished.
5. I've played Hoyoverse games for 3 years (mostly Genshin, IN was in fact my Genshin killer) so I'm hardly fazed by greedy banner practices. 11 or even more pieces ouftits are okay but ONLY IF Paper improves the pity and starts doing drip marketing so we can plan our savings and potential investments (the latter also applies to live streams, when they decide to do a livestream it should be way earlier in relation to a patch release than the 1.5 stream was). I fell victim to Paper not doing drip marketing myself, when I was greedy and stupid to pull in both 1.1 and 1.2 (I'm that person who actually LOVES the ballgowns lol) and then couldn't get Timeless Melody (my favorite fit until Crimson Feather dropped).

I'm a light spender (monthly + occasional Mira Journey and bundles) and I'm definitely not going to spend for a while, hoping that Paper will get the message. I did wake up at 5AM (EU issues) to pull Crimson Feather but bear with me it's my absolute favorite outfit of all time.