First of all, sorry for my english as I'm not an english speaker, but I wish the message can be passed down to Klei Entertainment and the community!
We have only 2 more updates into this arc, and I believe that those 2 are going to be released and finished alongside all skill trees until the end of the year, or at least the start of 2026. After Klei is finished with this arc, I think there needs to be a big big QoL focused updates. And when I say QoL, I don't mean bug-like fixes like placement issues, I mean ones similar to rot dissolving in the rain.
DST has so much content right now, but most of this content is only accessible if you go out of your way to search and find them. AND I KNOW that this is a developer mission, almost like a fixed idea for dst, but this is hurting the game and I mean it. Let me try to explain it.
Sometimes I create a new world, set myself up for Winter, do a quick ruins rush, clear the map and get myself comfortable with resources. After that, there's this moment where I'm just looking at my base at day 25 after getting a Tam o' Shanter and a Walking Cane, Star Caller Staff and a bunch of great gear almost feeling overwhelmed knowing how freaking LONG it'll take me to go to the next step. It's sooo much work to get to end game again and again. And skill trees aren't helping me make this journey quicker, it's just helping me with the combat experience overall. Man, if I can ask something from Klei, it would be to make this progression from zero to hero more fun. Hear me out.
It's rewarding to walk 25% faster, but it isn't rewarding to do Pearl's quests, fight Crab king and the journey to astral detectors right until I opened rifts, and THEN I fight the Celestial Champion, to finally get rifts open and the fight rewards. If I can ask for something, it would be to give us a unique, fun to use, cool, and interesting reward to helping pearl, fighting Crab king, unlocking the underground Puzzles and Moonstorms. We currently got:
- Additional craftable turfs in the archive puzzles (Only useful in late game, not very rewarding).
- Amberosia, which is a slap in the face because of how infuriatingly slow it is to farm thulecite with that mechanic.
- Pearl is now a friend (wow!).
- Crab king help us navigate the ocean better, and some bottles (this one is actually fine).
I would trade ALL of these rewards for 25% movespeed as an example. Means that if I would have to choose between the Walking cane, or any of these things, I would choose the Walking Cane, which is even easier to obtain. Can you see where the progression unbalance is? That's why people are complaining about the end-game being too boring to get to. Note: Give us another Pearl quest or make fishing in the ocean actually rewarding and impactful!
Suggestions:
I got some suggestions to make this journey feel a bit better with some upgrades. Klei please do not underestimate how important it is to make this journey more enjoyable, the rewards we have right now are really not that important. I'll give some suggestions and you guys can take inspiration or even copy these into the game without any idea credit. Just look how people loved Walter's skill tree and his slingshot upgrades. It's time to add features for all characters. Note : Any names I gave were just quick replacements for the idea and can (and should) be changed by something more creative.
The Upgrades Station. -I am not an artist this is just a quick ugly sketch on paint-.
A new station can be created with moonglass, gears and boards. The "upgrade station" (I imagine a table having a monocle to analyze items) would add crafts in the refine tab. This station is unlocked giving Frostjaw a Fig-Stuffed Trunk as a gift, or any ocean related food that's high in calories. This blueprint is ocean related and it would look like the regular blueprint, but with little bites and tainted with squid-ink, almost like a lost pirate treasure. Further blueprints handed that are related to the upgrade station will only be unlocked if put INTO the station, as they are themed blueprints which are different from regular ones and cannot be learned normally -except for the "upgrade station" blueprint itself given by frostjaw-. Each upgrade can also be signed by only visual effects present for us, as it would be very hard to match it with skins and show it in the players body or dropped item (You'll see what I mean with the suggestions I gave down here). A unique visual effect would cost a loooooot of time to do, and it is better to think of a simple but effective vfx solution.
The Upgrades Station Blueprint:
- Runty Guppy, Needlenosed Squirt, Bitty Baitfish, Smolt Fry and Spittlefish could all drop from 1 to 2 scales. With 6 scales in the refined tab, we can craft a right hand scale glove or a wrist attachment in which the player would be able to consume to passively increase movement speed while holding the walking cane by an additional 10% permanently. Alternatively we would craft some sort of handle applicable to a row to make it impossible (or less likely) to miss action while rowing, or even make it automatic. It could maybe also increase durability. It can also alternatively just make it so when using the Walking Cane, we don't get slowed by anything anymore. It could also have ALL of these feature BUT COST WAY MORE THAN 6 SCALES, something like a Brightshade Upgrade can also be imagined for late-game. This blueprint will be found in a setpiece in the ocean, a shining mud blob deep in the ocean surrounded by rocks.
- After completing 12 tasks from pearl, she will gives us a Thermal Fishpad secret blueprint. Combine both Winter and Summer fish and doodads for an applicable upgrade to thermal stones, making them infinite again. Honestly, this is just a win-win situation, the thermal stone durability was a temporary decision anyway, and now there is a possibility for a definitive solution without a mod, and people would go out fishing for this little upgrade. Not only people would fish more and be more interest in the mechanic, but the reward would be substantially great. There could also be an alternative to this, making thermal stones repairable instead. These should be mid-game upgrades, and not late game upgrades.
- Give a Wobster to Frostjaw and he'll reward you with a deep ocean coral piece that he found. This coral piece can be crafted with silk and gold for a repairable and more durable Pond Fishing Rod, with 50 uses.
- Make the archive moths work quicker and give more thulecite fragments. Add a 10% chance for green, yellow and orange gems when mining their dens for fragments. Allow us to give moths a better Amberosia (mix Amberosia and hound teeth in the refine tab for a moth meal) to moths for these gems to be dropped as well. Secret Blueprint would be found in ONE OF the Labyrinth chests. Alternatively, we would only allow gems to be farmable outside of reseting the ruins in the late game, making these moth meals cost a late game material instead.
- Bone Shards and Rotten Eggs can be mixed to craft a Sweet-bush meal, can be applicable to berry bushes to make them grant 1 additional berry. Stone fruits bushes will each give 1 additional stone fruit and Juicy berry bushes will also give 1 additional berry. The buff will be visible as a "better bush", with a yellow tap around it's base, signaling that the bush is very happy with it's new food. The Sweet-bush meal blueprint is given by Pearl after a Giant Crop (any crop) is placed in pearl's Island.
- Feathery Canvas now requires the "upgrade station", and will be passively unlocked with the station.
- Feathery Canvas can be used to make the passive item Pocket Jeans for 2 additional Inventory Spaces, indicated by a blue pouch in the edge of the player's inventory UI. Pocket Jeans will get wet and the items will be dropped if the player's Wetness reach 60 points, a little over 50. Blueprint is given from a Malbatross kill.
- The Benevolent Bunny King will now give us a secret blueprint if we hand him a caught and alive Carrat. The blueprint unlocks the craft for the Mysterious Handle -3x Fishscale, 2x Twigs and 2x Cookie Cutter Shell- which can be applied to all staves and the Bat Bat. The staves will all be repairable if the handle is applied, it will cost the gem itself but will be very expensive. The Bat Bat will now also be repairable, but with purple gems, and it will deal 8.5 more damage a hit. Not only this will motivate us to find the lunar island and catch a Carrat, but also fish, and search for cookie cutters. Alternatively it would cost a Gord's Knot and some Gold instead, making it more themed related with the ruins.
The blueprint was supposed to be a top hat by I failed miserably.
- Add a blueprint in one of the Atrium Chests for the Long Lost Lift, which can be crafted with gold and nightmare fuel, when applied to the Telelocator focus, it will no longer consume purple gems when used, simple as that. It would make me way more hyped about using magic, and I would always carry a Telelocator Staff with me, and put a Focus in my base.
- Long placed in a different looking boulder deep down in the caves, at the rock lobster biome is the Golden Claw Blueprint, achievable after mining that boulder. The Golden Claw costs 2x Gold and 1x Wobster. Applicable to the Night Light, making it have a 1 item slot in it. Nightmare fuel can be put into the slot, up to a stack of 40. The nightmare fuel will be consumed automatically, but each fuel will grant double fire efficiency instead. The Night Light can also receive a Possessed Shadow Atrium for infinite light or Pure Horror for quadruple efficiency. We know have a reason to go deep into the caves, fish lobsters and this item would look very cool and dark. The Night Light with a Possessed Shadow Atrium will give out a red light.
- Wagstaff left a secret blueprint when he left the Moon Quay Island, and Monkey Queen took it. Give a Back Scratcher trinket to the Monkey Queen to receive the Mechanic's Wrench. This item can be crafted with Scrap, Twigs and Gold. If the survivor has a Mechanic's Wrench in their inventory, Clockworks will no longer be aggressive unless attacked. The Mechanic's Wrench can also be used at the Abandoned Junk for a guaranteed W.A.R.B.I.S Blueprint Rotation. I'm not drawing a wrench, you get the idea.
As you can see, these are only some of the examples that I had been thinking about in the past days after trying the last character's skill trees and having to spend a long long time reaching End-game. But what matter here is the idea of something to be put in the mid-game to tie everything together. As we experienced throughout the Return of Them arc progression, the game was rushed and the rewards were not thought about I believe.
Please Klei take in consideration not specifically my suggestion, but the idea of a nice QoL to help us reach this long journey with a smile in the face, and make sure that these additions look cool for the player (us) to go out of their way for them as a little treasure hunter piece side quest similar to Terraria's Accessories presented in their game's Tinkerer's Workshop. 
Thanks for Reading!
EDIT : Added drawings.