I love TAS too, I think it's worth a full watch for sure. (Everything in Star Trek is!) And you're spot-on about the show's watchability. I'm just a little more hesitant to recommend all of it, especially to someone who is looking to truncate their viewing time. As the show goes on, the tone of the episodes gets sillier/more kid-friendly which is not what everyone comes to for Star Trek and probably helped earn its bad reputation back in the day. Also, the show has been heavily mined for content by future Star Trek writers, to the point where nearly every episode has at least one other episode in Trek (or Orville lol) that is identical in plot/structure/theme, so it might feel redundant to some. (Which is why I would normally tell people to watch either The Cage, OR The Menagerie - not both; it's rough on the attention span to basically watch the same episode twice.)
And then there's the Harry Mudd episodes, or a handful of others that rely on you having knowledge of specific original series episodes as they are direct sequels that Patrick is skipping over. Which you can still totally watch absent their original context, but it is a thing.
And then there's the Harry Mudd episodes, or a handful of others that rely on you having knowledge of specific original series episodes as they are direct sequels that Patrick is skipping over. Which you can still totally watch absent their original context, but it is a thing.