It’s fine to hit a wall. You are not meant to be able to get the highest ilvl stuff without doing harder content.
But Blizzard really dropped the ball by making Champ Track and Hero Track gear be effectively the same gear for people who can’t or won’t farm M+8 or higher. There should be a CLEAR distinction there and there’s just not, so shooting for Hero Track gear seems pointless.
ilvl upgrades are fine but the weird overlap on crests and the lack of baseline distinction between specifically these 2 tracks is effectively deleting the relevance of an entire section of the game for a large amount of players.