Seemingly no ping in high player count world instances now?

Ever since 5.01, combat in extremely high population world instances has been so smooth that it feels like playing with ~10 ping or even less. I've asked a few people in-game and they've said it feels the same to them as well.

I started to notice it when running with hunt trains of 150+ people, while playing MCH, and my ogcd weaves during Hypercharge between Heat Blasts were crisp and instantly responsive, unlike in dungeons or uncrowded world areas where I'd clip heavily if I didn't time button presses perfectly.

Has anyone else noticed this? Were there any optimization efforts for world areas announced at some point?

I am just genuinely curious if more people have noticed or experienced this and if it might be something SE is working on to bring over into the game as a whole. I would love to not have to pay for a VPN just to do rotations competitively on jobs like MCH or keeping perfect uptime on melee.

This also kind of bothers me that if they have the capability to make that possible, why haven't they rolled it out more substantially? The game is so much more enjoyable and feels way better to play.