I've returned to the fold, albeit on a PC. I wanted to provide an update to my playing usage in this thread even though its console based but it's where I've had most of my interactions with FO76.
This past weekend Steam had a play for free weekend and double XP for FO76, and since its on a different platform, I had to start over. Normally this is a deal breaker. I got up to level 40-something on my PS4 game, but since I've been away from the game for probably over a year, I largely forgot about the details about to best to play. Hence starting over isn't a horrible idea.
I jumped in, and low and behold, I was enjoying myself - I opted early on embrace the subscription (please don't hate me), and in many ways it definitely helped, first off I really like the private servers. I've found at times doing quests with a full server that I trip over someone else doing the same exact quest. Secondly, there's a lack of scrap, i.e., ballistic fiber for armor repairs/mods. On a private server, I just need to shoot over to army base and grab some. Same with fusion cores - you can't "farm" them, i.e., leave the server jump back in. You still need to wait a while before they respawn but its good to know.
Gameplay has been enhanced with the human NPCs and this has always been my biggest criticism, even though I've not started the wastelanders questline and I'm still doing the original questline, there are human NPCs in and around the land. Some you can interact on some level, though without starting the wasterlanders questline you have some interactiveness.
You need to finish ounce of prevention before getting the full questline, i.e., create a vaccine for the scorch disease. People start returning in a sense, I saw a raider faction near the southeast portion of the map, where I was going to try to get an excavator power armor (but I was too low of a level to take on that quest, and I was getting there I saw on to the factions from the DLC.
Overall the game isn't perfect, but I do think with the additions that Bethesda added, does warrant a second look, and while I abhor the move to a subscription basis, Fallout First added a number of things that I really like, including the New Vegas Ranger outfit. Plus the tent (a mini-C.A.M.P) that doesn't cost anything to move has become invaluable. I place that in the middle of a map location, so if I die or need to return, its in the middle, saving me caps, plus it allows me to offload my junk and what not.