This is version 24. You aren't going to see leaps and bounds of growth when there have been 23 previous versions of the game. It is too large of a product with too small of a development team to not feel very similar from year-to-year.
Have you looked at the change list for OOTP 24? A lot of the biggest changes are under the hood and probably not something you will notice in a couple days of playing.
https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=344827