That WAS my experience, too.  Now I am at 85 level with characters 70 to 80, full mods, gear levels varying from 4to 9.  I field twenty squads and have not been able to finish  Galactic War since leveling up.  Three of the battles take a few squads to defeat, battles 9, 11or 12 would be impossible for my strongest squads.  Unfortunately only my midrange characters are left by then.  My strategy is good enough to defeat stronger opponents in the squad arena sometimes.
This is what you have to look forward to, drastically slowed progress with fewer resources and ever tougher battles.  When your toons don’t get a chance to strike, the battle is over quickly.  The deck is stacked.  Have you noticed that you have to swipe thru twice as many PURCHASE NOW items to get to the free store items or use ally tickets?  I say the game is about to lose a lot of players unless they return to the original concept.