Yeah, I guess tickets have been significantly improved. If you are level 50, you no longer get the miserable 1 or 2 star tickets that give you nothing all the time.
The worst ticket you can get is the 3 star, which is still crap at a low payout of 5k (lol) but at least 4* are a lot more common as well as 5 and 6*, and you even get exclusive engine (which for me are now useless) and parts tickets to get those same special parts a lot easier.
And still, despite this massive improvement, it's still a long ass way of it still being a valid way to get those parts. Again, it's only 1 per day, and you are not guaranteed to get the part that YOU WANT and may end up with duplicates most of the time or parts for cars you don't care about (safety car parts for example).
Got a normal 6* ticket (500k) and an engine 6* ticket the last 2 days in a row.