Agreed that Deep Space 9 overall is the best Trek show.
The first two seasons of DS9 were in my opinion pretty rough, although you're right that it isn't quite as bad as early TNG. There's some really remarkably bad standalone episodes like "Move Along Home" and "If Wishes Were Horses" in S1, a lot of the sets/costumes/props look really cheap and dated in the same way as TNG, and certain main characters (Bashir, Kira, Dax especially) the showrunners really didn't seem to know what to do with. (I don't think they ever quite figured out how to handle Dax, but the writing for Bashir and especially Kira improves a lot in later seasons.) Still, if you are enjoying the show now, it only gets better from this point forward. I'd personally say it becomes consistently good starting with "The Jem'Hadar" the finale of Season 2.
Incidentally, despite my bagging on DS9 S1, "Duet" is easily one of my top five Trek episodes.