I don’t think that aligns with the OP’s thoughts though. You are saying you need to do everything to tread water but the OP was saying by doing everything, even casually, things are being outgeared. That isn’t treading water which I would equate to falling behind.
If you are doing casual content like WQs and Raid Finder, what are you trying to get that you aren’t getting? If you just do these two things for 3 months, what are your expectations on what gear you should have?
In your specific case, (and this is all just hypothetical and part of a discussion folks!) how long should it take to be done in a given content cycle?