EIP-1559 wasn't meant to lower fees and didn't have that effect. It did stabilize the fees, which was bad for people like me who were prepared to wait until gas was relatively cheap for a moment (often in the weekend, unless there was an NFT auction).

EIP-1559 was good for holders, since most of the fees are burned now and miners only receive a small tip. It's even good for miners, since the price went up, while some miners stopped replacing machines because PoS is coming.

Some second-layer solutions are cheap. Some will become cheaper with more usage. But at the moment it's difficult to choose one where you can find your favorite apps (I prefer Polygon).