Eh. It's still Star Trek. I think the hangup on traveling is silly. The wormhole serves the same role as a narrative device as the warp drive. The original idea, before the Dominion War came along, was that the station would regularly have the same kind of weekly "planet of the week" encounters as other Star Trek shows. And the series does have many episodes like that, episodes like Meridian. I'm referring to bottle episodes, episodes focused on a single novel planet, culture, or ethical dilemma.

The idea was that because the station is at the mouth of a newly discovered wormhole, that the station would get that story mechanic while the characters stay in the same spot. Instead of the entire crew visiting new planets, new planets would effectively come to them. Delegations from new worlds would pour through the wormhole, providing opportunities to explore new cultures and civilizations. And Federation explorers could go through the wormhole and have their adventures shown on-screen or be discussed back on the station. An example of this can be found in Captive Pursuit.

Narratively, a wormhole functions the same as a warp drive. The story just brings the universe to the crew, rather than the crew to the universe. But narratively it makes little difference. You would think Trek fans more than anyone would appreciate that motion is relative in space.

Yeah I love the show after but ds9 vs any other shows is a depth vs breath. Ds9 had some of the most complex characters in all of star trek. Because of that push and pull between the writers and Berman. Those first few seasons let you do character driven stories and flesh out the world. Then that paid off in dividends in the later seasons when they starting doing plot driven serial stories. Plus they were not to drop a epistolic story right in the middle of a longer story arc. To give the audience a breather/ palette cleanser.

Unlike today where each season is a bloated movie where the plot is find the mcguffin that will save the universe every season. Like a crappy railroaded D&D campaign.

(I didn't directly addressed you, just the opinion formulated in the meme).

I mean, I get that the show could feel a bit slow and light in the first two seasons sometimes. But on the other hand, the first thing it does is introducing Picard's perfect foil as the new commanding officer by questioning Picard and his role during the Borg crisis.
Most interesting start of any Trek show if you ask me.

Also the themes the show worked with, the character developement, even the continuation and expanding of TNG topics like Klingon and Ferengi culture and society.

BRB, wrote myself into wanting to rewatch.