I have the same issues and it has only gotten worse. So much that I have stopped playing on a weekly basis. This might be good for my social life and reading life.
Typically when the game starts acting that way, it means something else is using my net. The game itself is a huge internet vampire. So even with one device using google can make me lag. I just turn everything else off if it gets bad. Fixes it 99% of the time. Other 1% tends to be weather related.
They're aware. The response time's a bit sad, but since Elsweyr it's pretty common on PS4 to have delayed sound, invisible NPCs and other symptoms of what appears to be either an over-stuffed client, overloaded servers or a combination of the two.