Have you purged node_db to get rid of MQTT peers (as well as turning off MQTT). I had the problem of thinking LoRA has improved greatly since i last tried it, seeing stations 17miles away. But it was all MQTT.
You can try a traceroute command like here which gives you a result if you are in real-time two-way connection. You need to have the same encryption key as the outstation. I have a secondary channel set to LongFast AQ== as per the docs so I would be able to see and relay default stations without sharing my loc with them. There’s only one RF channel on EU_868 else I’d also have to set that as default.
I found the app cached peers too, so I had to restart my phone to get rid of the peers in the app, after I had purged nodedb and shut down the MQTT module