"... there's nothing like having people around to explain where things are/aren't working in the story to help you genuinely grow and improve."

Jumping in to second this. It's extremely hard to give your own work any level of objective critical attention – not even because of sentiment, but because you know it too well. On a small level, this is why betas can point out typos and mussed sentences that a writer didn't spot: because the writer knows what should be there, they don't see what is. Likewise with the bigger things. One of my readers has to frequently remind me to describe character and setting, for example, as I have such a clear idea of who's who and what's where that I forget to share the details.