My experience has been a mixed bag so far, in part because I've been away from the game so long that I've forgotten a ton of stuff. I've mostly been doing TFs, but also a few radio teams. Early on it was amazing, particularly when backed up by some Kins. I was going through Positron, etc. and pulling whole rooms and just crushing it without any enhancements. By the late 20s and 30s, things got ugly. Mind you, this is partially my fault because I'd completely forgotten about generic IOs, which would have made a HUGE difference. But for a good while, I was blowing through the few SOs that I had because of how fast I was leveling and was really squishy. Now that I'm in the 40s and have rediscovered generic IOs, it is much better!
Now that I'm starting to put in things like defense debuff enhancements, I feel like the character is really starting to come together. I'm still slotting in IOs as fast as I can, but I'm running 6 toggles (Combat Jumping, and the total of 5 between both rads) and doing OK, even without a Kinetic. I'm still earning my debt badges, but it's a lot of fun.
I would definitely recommend slotting in generic workshop IOs starting at 22 and I suspect that you'll have more success than I did.