Yeah, difficulty levels are just tiers, and probably shouldn't have the names they do. The goal ultimately is to get to the torments as soon as possible. There's nothing hard about hard or expert about expert for the most part unless you intentionally undergear. What level are you? Thought master opens up at 60+. And at 70 you can do any difficulty you want anyways.
Loot now is fantastic, better than entire inventories of awful legendaries. That can still happen, but loot 2.0 is the best thing that's happened to the game.
On PC last night I just finally got my last character, a Demon Hunter, to 70. Power leveled in a few days from 23 over maybe 3 hours of palyed time. Dinged 70 in a torment 5 rift where I got the last 3 levels in 10 minutes or so, lol.
Preference in order is WD, Crusader, Barb, Monk, DH. DH could easily jump to 2 or 3 with some gear. Always felt so weak, is why i never bothered to level him higher than 23 or so.