The Elder Scrolls Online

Over the past two years or so I haven’t played much and am a bit puzzled as to the rebalancing that the game has gone through. Perhaps someone can give me some tips / insight?

From what I understand:
All character stats are basically scaled to the enemies, correct? Thus highlevel players just have access to more unlocked skills than entry level players, but the actual damage / health is all normalized to a certain average?

Has all progression has slowed to a trickle with percentile growth at most requiring a huge time investment to even level up, right? So for a casual player, leveling has basically become pointless?

Also my character is a veteran level 100 & my buddy is veteran level 500. These days when we hit upon a skull & bones enemy (in various regions), we get our asses handed to us, whereas that used to be doable with 2 players.

Are we just terrible at playing the game? Or has the game been rebalanced so that those enemies can only be tackled by mobs these days?

Thanks!