Florida is more of a bubble for Disney than DLR. You can really only replicate that if you stay at Disneyland Hotel or Grand Californian. Neither really was enough to make us want to spend the extra money to get less hotel room square footage. We stay at the Courtyard Front Entrance where it has 2 queens, a bunk bed, and most importantly with two teens a bathroom with one shower behind a locked door and another tub/shower + vanity. It's a lot less to stay there than one of the Disney hotels and it's under 10 minutes to get to security off Harbor Blvd.
Florida can't really replicate that. Florida definitely has its charm and I would say it's a better overall vacation but it's a lot more work. You're in it for the long haul and it's not something that can be done quickly. There's a lot more prep that goes into that trip. Everything requires transportation unless you're staying at Contemporary but that only helps you with one park. We stayed at The Swan one year and that was great for walking to Epcot and Hollywood Studios or taking a boat back to our hotel. We had to take shuttles to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. Not the biggest deal but it adds time and stress, especially late at night when you're just trying to get back to your bed.
We actually went to Florida first as that was where I went as a kid. It was a fantastic vacation because we knew what we were getting into and we spent almost a week there. We stayed at a Disney hotel with a food court and scheduled all the advanced dining options we could. Our kids were also the perfect age of 7 and 5. It made us decide to try Disneyland since we had never been before. It was just an entirely different experience that we really enjoyed. We did what you did and spent a day going to Hollywood, Griffith Observatory, and Santa Monica. We took an afternoon and went over to Huntington Beach to get in more time at the ocean. It just fit more what we wanted in a vacation and now we've gone 4 more times to just 1 extra WDW trip. And yes, the weather is so much better outside of when we went in October which was very hot. Still, we just would take a break every day and go for a swim. That's a 10 minute walk versus a 20-30 minute shuttle ride in WDW. Also, I hate Genie+ at WDW compared to DLR. We lucked out in our last trip to WDW because Covid Delta was going on so the parks were pretty empty and there was no Genie+ outside of people with ADA accommodations. Others can speak on Genie+ at WDW but it's used by more people since most are from out of town so there's less good options and things sell out faster. DLR you're not getting as much of that because locals don't see the value in it when they can come back another time.
We'll find out how August is weather wise but it's nothing like the immediate feeling of sweating at 8am when you first stand in line to rope drop in Orlando. I'm sure there are times of the year that are great weather wise like the holidays or in January but those don't really work with high school schedules and it not be massive amounts of people or the busiest time of the year. Disneyland we found was just more our speed. We keep debating going back to WDW but it's just much more of a cost and time commitment. We also just prefer California to Florida. We're more likely to try out Epic Universe next because the deals you get at Universal hotels are incredible. I don't know if they're doing Universal Express with the new park but it was tremendous the one long weekend we did both parks and stayed at the Royal Pacific resort. We walked on most rides outside of ones that had virtual queues.