It's been a while since I read them, but no I didn't get that impression. I read the first few Mistborn books a couple years ago and had some of the same issues as you. Some people really enjoy how every little detail of how the magic works is explained in different ways more than once. And in that way Licanius is Sanderson-lite I guess. It's not overexplained at all. And not everything is explained in detail because the focus is on other aspects of the story and characters.

Personally, I prefer books that go even further away from the hard magic. Like Earthsea and Lord of the Rings. But Licanius is a good middle ground that I still enjoyed. Same for Name of the Wind and The Fifth Season, both of those have a detailed magic system that is understandable, but the pages of the book don't revolve around it.

Either it is simply pandering and marketing. Or he doesn't actually believe in the teaching of his church and truly does support LGBTQ equality... yet still gives millions to the organization that is actively harming those groups.

It doesn't make sense in any way I can see.

I'd recommend The Shadow of What was Lost, then (Licanius Trilogy). It's similar to Sanderson in the worldbuilding area, but not so overexplained. And plenty of reflection/philosophy along the way. I have some issues with it, but one thing it does better than almost any other series I've read is showing the motivations of the characters and grounding them and making them logical to the characters as opposed to the plot. Also something I enjoyed was a lot of the history was woven into the dialogue. Well, I should say I enjoyed how well it was done. Because judging by the average book or tv show, that approach is almost always completely hamfisted and awful. But the author here does it very fittingly.

Agreed. This is why I enjoyed the Starless Sea much more. Like she is aware of her strengths and weaknesses and just went all in on descriptions and exploration and had only enough characterization and plot to keep thing moving. Like just building the skeleton because there needs to be some reason to be here and then to go somewhere else, and so on. It is a novel after all. But one with very clear priorities, which I appreciated.

Also really liked your description of the Night Circus feeling like you were watching bad acting. I had a very similar reaction. I think it might have just been the dialogue, but it's been a while since I read it, and unfortunately I can't really expand on why I have that feeling. Or maybe that I'm used to more internal monologue and motivation, and that was pretty absent in the book. Like the characters do horrible things to each other and then are forgiven without much of an explanation or conversation. Sometimes no explanation at all, just a time jump. I really didn't like that approach.