Your statement that "it began from a hot and dense state" is true only in the Lambda-CDM model, not in the Big Whisper model, a slightly different Big Bang model.

The quarks tell us loud and clear that they got forged under an extreme condition, so YES to extreme pressure, but NO to super-hot.

When there is mechanical deformation, then there will of course be heat produced, but nothing super-hot because the essence is the forging through extreme pressure.

https://medium.com/@fred-rick/quarks-explain-our-universe-best-e03b7ccf72c3

As for the subject matter of your article: Equilibrium has already been reached, per each galaxy, per each grouping of matter. They are on-going, moving outwardly away from one another. Each has reached its own equilibrium, its own maximized entropy.

The universe is a catch-all noun. It is not an entity itself. Equilibrium at the universal level is not possible because we live in a result and not in the original state. The omelet tells us with 100% certainty that the egg broke. The original state is no longer intact like before.