Good TR, and the food actually looks really good, and perfectly substantial.
I wonder if your expectations were too high. You have correctly identified that this is a step up from Economy rather than a step down from Business. This is exactly how CX advertise and market their PEY, so you should not except too much from it.
I have travelled on CX PEY and VS PEY and I think CX compares well to other PEY products, the only thing that would be better, is if CX had a dedicated PEY galley and FA. The problem is that this is not possible on 77W aircraft configurations.