Now 40+ years old, the 28-45/4.5 was a milestone design in its time. Nikon put a lot of efforts into making it possess low geometric distortion, and sharpness is pretty good too. The slow speed can be a challenge for focusing unless you have a decent finder to match, or use Liveview.
Handling is excellent once you familiarise yourself with the loose action of the focusing ring.
Apart from rendering images with a more mellow, lower contrast, and the occasional need for removing some CA, the 28-45 is useful for FX users even today. Your images corroborate that.