It appears to me that the centroid axis of the llv vortex is probably closer to the eastern edge of that impressive region of cold cloud tops.

Nonetheless ... I am in general agreement here that intensification is probably underway; one clue to that is the persistence in the CDO, or CDO-like feature. Quite perpetual and increasingly symmetric in time.

Other notable is that the motion has corrected smartly west, though in keeping with the necessitated 6-hourly mean the motion would have to be WNW for the time being.

The 18z GFS run decided to abruptly break trend, both with regard to the TC, and the entirety of the local hemispheric synoptic evolution; such continuity shifts over such huge mass fields of this nature seldom demonstrate much skill.