This article seems interesting to your case....
https://pcmonitors.info/articles/2560-x-1440-vs-1920-x-1080/
I'm using 1920 x 1080 on a 23" Ultrasharp and I can imagine that the loss in ppi may contribute to your blurriness... but perhaps there is also something related to your font smoothing or such....
Anyway I'm a newb (noob too) with displays but makes sense that the higher the PPI, the better and smoother the display. That's how I ended up looking for 34" with 3440 x 1440 resolution for work and play.... and the function to change it to a higher refresh with lower res for gaming makes total sense.
Agree with you that if main use for the 31.5" is for text and work it will be not so good vs gaming. Probably TS might want to go smaller but with higher res?
Anyway the product makes total sense coming from Aftershock