things to experience before finishing the last main quest (lots of questions)

Hi

I am a level 19 human male warrior with 80+ hours played. I have romanced Cassandra and completed her personal quest. I also completed Varric's, Solas', Cole's, Leliana's personal quests. I occacionally flirted with different characters. I never met Blackwall or Sera but I found Iron Bull - didn't get any personal quest from him, though.

I am on the last stage of the main quest (Doom Upon All the World). Last night I started that quest without realizing that it was the final main mission. It was sort of anti-climatic experience. (after the connections that I've built, agents acquired, etc.). I didn't even speak to the people at the party (post war celebration) afterwards and just went to my quarters. But it was nice when Cassandra joined me (romance scene). Still, after the credits rolled it felt pointless to go on playing.  

So I decided to go back to my backup save (before I started Doom Upon All the World mission) and pretend that my aforementioned anti-climatic experience was merely a dream - a premonition of the things to be. I didn't even finish Varric's and Josephine's (Inner Circle) quests before realizing that it was over and Skyhold suddenly turned into a sterile, cold and indifferent environment. I had much higher hopes for the climax and the payoff of the ending. I thought, that all the power that I have gathered: agents, factions, characters, claimed areas, important quests would pay off in some way as it did in Mass Effect 3. But nope - it didn't feel the same in DA:I. I tried finding a fine balance between: not rushing too much and just getting it over with.

1). Is it worth exploring more before finishing the final quest? Would it make sense to explore some specific areas AFTER finishing the main quest? And what about DLCs - are they worth it? I am really confused - on the one hand I want things to be a surprise, but on the other hand I expect certain things to pay off after my actions from the previous games. I want some expectation of what to do, to experience the "right" things. Tbh DA:I feels a bit sandboxy like Skyrim did - that is why I miss some limitations. I miss the narrower path of the older games with the main quest in focus a bit more. I feel like I claimed too many areas, collected too many shards and did too many generic quests to no avail.

2). Is it worth finding Blackwall and Sera? Or is it too late to build any form of friendship with them? I was thinking to just forget about them and save them til the next playthrough.

3). Is there any place worth going where there is a "shrine" (maybe some book, statue, crypt, etc.) of some sort that honors my dead Grey Warden (Hero of Ferelden) who died in DA:O killing the Archdemon? A hero giving his life to save the world seems like a very significant thing to a story but I didn't seem to find much appreciation for it besides a few comments from Leliana and Morrigan - and some "Hero of Ferelden" text at the loading screen. My dream was to find a beautiful crypt (in Redcliffe perhaps) with flowers and engraving with text like "Here lies Satovir, hero of Ferelden, saviour of Redcliffe." and a few people mourning him, probably telling a few stories about his good deeds from DA:O. *sigh* something tells me that BioWare "forgot" to do something like this - would be so awesome, though.

4). (without spoiling too much) Is it possible to find Alistair, Loghain and the Enchantment-dwarves (Sandel: "enchaaaantment!")?

5). My current romance with Cassandra. Will it live on after I finish the main Q? Will there be any other romantic scenes (meanwhile doing other stuff like DLCs)? If not, can I start new romances? (My final romance scene with Cassandra didn't make much sense. It seemed like Cassandra was sad that I would become way too busy to see her... or something. Not giving me much clue what to expect from that relationship)

6). Should I explore different areas using different combinations of party members to hear their conversations? Almost entire game I've played with: Varric, Solas and Cole (had lots of fun hearing their talks). Can I expect new entertaining conversations from new combos of characters? I am not sure how the banter mechanism works - is it area specific? Are there a number of conversations between certain characters that become "depleted" after some time?

7). Any general advice?

Thanks in advance! And thanks for reading 🙂