TBH, I’ve done more with the storm since early access began than I ever did during beta.
Like she mentioned, @Narelle and I weren’t exactly fond of the horror stuff and while we farmed enough essence for minor leyshrine surges, we didn’t do much with it – particularly after transitioning from the test server to co-op and single-player. As such, a lot of our leyshrine tests were done by spawning essence to see what the various surges were all about, and (in some cases) griping about the low rate of T4 crafter spawns.
It really wasn’t until I got my own server up and running on Siptah (once we all entered Early Access) that I can recollect dealing with the crazy number of spawns once you’ve been in for a long time.