Well, I can't talk about leveling after the shadowlands level squish, but before you would do significantly more damage and top the dps meters while leveling (apart from outliners like arcane mage) if you spec heal with feral affinity (using int gear obviously, if this wasn't clear).
You then apply sunfire and switch to cat to thrash and swipe in case of aoe, or apply your dots (incl. moonfire) in case of single target. Feels a little bit like playing classic.
Only annoying is that you have to respec every time you enter a dungeon, as it puts you into a dps spec if you queue as dps, so you need to respec to heal every single time.
Well you will not be topping damage at level 60 either. Feral can do decent damage, has decent utility, but just isn't top tier in any way. And as such you will struggle to get invited into to m+ pugs. If you like it enough to stick with it, then push your own keys. Otherwise, you could have a look at windwalker which currently does way more damage for less effort, has some unique utility and is pretty easy to pick up. Personally I enjoy them both.