So my urges to sim come and go. When they come, I want to sit down and get into the fun. Instead, with 2024 I'm greeted with degraded bandwith messages as soon as I get the world screen up, and the loading into the mission itself (career mode) takes like 10+ minutes.

I'm more likely to keep quitting the game than actually playing it. 

Are you on the beta? SU2 works well, if beta is giving issues maybe try getting back to the release?

What kind of internet are you on? For me, with 1 Gb fiber, it's quick to load. Maybe about 1:30 to load into the sim, then after you choose your plane and location, another 1:30 to load into the plane.. sometimes it's faster. 

If you are seeing all these bandwidth issues (and you have fast internet), the issue may well be with your ISPs peering setup with Azure. Try a VPN and see if that helps - if it does, then you know it's your internet.