Lived there from '95 till 2015.
It was great back in the day it would take you 10 minutes to make the 6 mile drive from Ft Walton to Destin. Now the same drive will take an hour and half minimum. Eventually moved to Crestview to get away from the traffic then the the Special Forces group moved in across the street from Duke Field. Last time I drove from Ft Walton to Crestview after 2 pm it was back up from Crestview all the way down the the 285 cutoff, in other words 2 hours minimum to got 20 miles.
It is a beautiful beautiful place but you couldn't pay me enough to live there. Maybe I'm just an old "get off my lawn" but its nothing like it was back in the 90s.
YMMV