Past Tense part 2 was better by a mile. All that happened in part 1 was Sisko lecturing and Bashir acting like a tool.
part one set the scene for part 2 and part 2 was the denouement

part one was chilling to watch with sheer helplessness of the situation of the homeless ,unemployed and the mentally ill being forced to live in the ghetto/sanctuary district.
past tense part 2 was better than part one because it showed why these star fleet officers are heroes.it is against the temporal directives to do what they did but they saw a very bad situation and were willing change it even at the expense of themselves.
Another reason why part 2 was better then part one,for me, was because it shows how wonderful and noble the federation and its society and thus the members of that society must be. it is said you judge a society by how it treats its weakest.The fact that sisko and bashir and dax were willing to act on behalf of the weakest,most viscerally dispised sections of a previous society shows how worthy and noble the federation must be.And remember at this time sisko was just a commander and not a captain. and when you consider that in hindsight that bashir is a genetically enhanced human and what we know about augments then even bashir is not a tool

i think part2 and by implication part one give the viewer an objective standard ,a template, with which to measure the actions of the federation and its members instead of the subjective one the viewer used previously .The actions of sisko and company in past tense part 2 painted their actions positively for me afterwards.They had empathy for weakest and the most hated (Sanctuary residents) of an earlier society.So as viewer you could see the pain that sisko felt in violating the principles of the federation in the sixth season episode
'in the pale moonlight' was real.
its interesting that you say past tense Part 1 was slow

part 1 was directed reza.s beyadi .He directed the opening title sequence of the Original Hawaii Five O. i think that title sequence is considered by many to be one of the most dynamic, kinetic, introductory sequences ever made

past tense part 1 showed how versatile a director he was

past tense Part 2 had very un sci-fi closed situation claustrophic tense hostage action situations which was well directed by that episodes director. That episode was directed by the director of Star Trek
First Contact and also
insurrection .two films that had vast expansive space battles and introduced fan favorite vessels like the enterprise-e,akira class and borg sphere.

Past tense part 2 shows just how talented and versatile the director, Jonathan Frakes, is when you consider just how different in scale and scope past tense part 2 is from movies first contact and insurrection

i think both of these episodes are amongst the best of trek produced

but past tense part 2 is better
