Don't get me wrong, I love CarsLand! I just remember with it, they started to upgrade the rest of the park, and while it was all good intentioned, I still miss the cheap looking Sun Plaza with the Golden Gate Bridge, California letters out front, etc.. I remember they were sprucing up the park in phases, with Pixar Pier (2019?) being the last of it, and that really felt like the final nail in the coffin in terms of "the old DCA" (while there are still many remaining fragments, but at the time, that seemed like the bulk of the changes were done). But yeah, somewhere between 2012-2019 these shifts were happening, then 2021-2022 it just capsized in the wrong direction.
I think a lot of the changes we were very patient of in the beginning, understanding that the whole world was hurting and that Disney was no exception. While there are still staffing issues, I feel a lot of these troubles fall upon Disney's management. And 3 years removed from reopening, taking advantage of a pandemic to implement permanent changes for their own benefit/business preferences just feels...icky.