I've heard 13th age is good, but I haven't played it.

I haven't been in the market for a big crunch fantasy game lately. There's always GURPS, which can get extremely crunchy and detailed. I played it once and had fun, but only for like two sessions.

I do really like Mage: The Awakening 2e, but that's a completely different game. I used to hack the underlying rules system into fantasy sometimes and it worked well.

I'm not sure I understand your hot take. I've done DND games that were very plot driven. The system just didn't help very much.