Pretty much. I used Android phones for years because I liked the hardware available better than the iPhone 6/7/8 series and iOS had some annoyances like the crappy notifications. iOS updates have fixed a lot of those issues and Android manufacturers apparently hate making smaller devices so I went to iPhone XS and like you said, it's a different experience but not really better or worse.
OP, if you are already past the return period for the XS Max I would just wait. I would expect Apple to fix a lot of issues with software updates in the coming months.