I think it's intended to be harder, with newer character requirements etc,
Reality is there is a lot of cheese/bugs which makes lots of the feats manageable. I presume some of these will be fixed for next time, so I've gone hard this time.
Defo more grindy and boring, spending lots of time repeating battles in sector 1 on certain feats which is never fun or engaging. No complaints on that though, in the context of conquest that's a win.
Data discs changes certainly make it harder, the loss of ZA makes some feats a lot more challenging. In principle it should make conquest more engaging and something new to figure out, not sure the reality is quite the pay off though.
Boss feats are great though. More of that please.