To me, it felt like the episode mattered because you got character development. It’s the first time we get to see exactly how Odo and Quark’s relationship works, and we also get to see Quark’s…“unorthodox” problem solving style, in contrast to how federation weenies go about things.
Not every character moment has to be climactic. You gotta mix in some slow-burn stuff there too. And also remember that early episodes like this had to do a lot of heavy lifting to reform the Ferengi from their disastrous TNG appearance.