Never thought I'd see the day Tartarus would be used as a positive argument for P3. lol
You can always accept requests for Mementos to scratch that itch between palaces, and each palace by themselves have a lot more going on than any Tartarus section(or the whole place, really). And given the fact you'd complete a barricade in a single day around halfway through the game, which is when the fatigue system becomes irrelevant, it certainly did feel like meandering for the rest of the month (and even dungeon crawling felt like it too, since it was so basic and repetitive). P5 felt much better paced for what I look forward to in a Persona title.
I wasn't arguing P4 meandered but rather that it follows the exact same structure you're complaining about with dialogue and events, the main difference being it was an overall shorter game. At any case, I'll be revisiting P4 shortly so I'm curious to see how it holds up after P5.