I've pretty much decided a long time ago to just accept One Piece as it is.

Oda sacrifice flow in order to create a larger narrative. This really help his story take this aspect of a grand adventure at the cost of character growth and development. I usually find myself rereading every arc after it finished because i have a hard time remembering and connecting all the details that get shown every week.

The payoff for this type of story telling is an epic arc like Whitebeard where all the dots connect and loose strands of the story starts to come together.

I would say that it helps to treat this like the start of a new story rather than the continuation of an old one, because it'll be a while before Oda starts to answer all the questions he presents.