I am only using the patch 4.3 without the coming content because its part of the problem the OP has.
Comparing the whole 4.3 including all the coming content with an older one was already off topic because it was not even the problem of the OP. Thats why I went ahead and just compared the initial releases of the patch (because that is the problem the OP has) and for me it showed that they were not much better than 3.1 at all. If you put HoH and Eureka in it, its better but again, that not even the topic of this thread.
I really hope that they never stagger it so much again. Give us at least one new content with release or maybe two weeks later but not this split up. At least for me this smells just like "we want more money because you will sub more often" which kinda means that they also dont feel like their content will hold interest for that long (otherwise releasing it now would not be a problem imo).
In my opinion a MMO should give the people the view of having huge amounts of stuff to do because they need our constant sub unlike normal games. Splitting it all up just feels like they dont really think that they have enough content that last till the next patch thus need to forcefully make it longer.