100% agree. There is tons of delicious vegetarian/vegan food, but vegetarian/vegan substitutions of traditionally meat based dishes range from terrible to just okay.
Carb replacement dishes have the same problem. Spaghetti Squash is delicious when cooked as a vegetable, but throwing Ragu on it and pretending it is pasta is just sad.
This is a good take. You can't replace a steak with plant based, but we eat a lot of meat in things where it doesn't matter as filler. Most ground beef recipes can be replaced easily with plant based alternatives with no difference. I know I feel less bloated after eating something with soy crumbles over ground beef.