We are still relying on DRS though, there's no point avoiding the elephant in the room. Ferrari drivers in Saudi Arabia were saying races would be very boring without DRS, although the new regs has given them some more predictability in the corners when racing. Like I said, the jury is still out for me and if we're not seeing improved racing by 2024 then I'll be confident in calling the new regulations a failure in it's objective. As it stands, we're seeing similar racing to 2021 with a shuffle in the pack that new regulations bring, but in terms of the actual racing then it's no change for me. The one saving grace I have in the back of my head is that we've only really been at street circuits so far in the season, once we start getting to the proper dedicated race circuits I'm hopeful the longer sweeping corners (as opposed to the 90 degree corners on street circuits) that those circuits provide might lend itself to some better action.
I'm not avoiding it, DRS is still essential for overtakes and I agree that it would be much better if it wasn't, but no one said that the new regs would make DRS obsolete immediately. Implementing new regs that makes overtaking easier and more common while at the same time removing the one thing from the regs that makes overtaking easier and more common is incredibly hard, and calling them out now with an "well if they haven't figured it out in 2 years time then they've failed" seems a bit premature.
F1 is also still going to be F1 where there are quite large gaps between the front runners, midfield and back markers, and again gaps within those groups during races depending on a ton of different things. It's never going to be a spec racing series with 10 cars within 10sec of each other for an entire stint with passes every lap, and just because you're able to follow more closely now doesn't necessarily mean you will eventually overtake as you need to actually be faster than the guy in front to do that. The new regs (with no DRS) only makes you able to stay closer for longer without ruining your tires, it doesn't make you faster than the car in front.
With all that said, there were more than twice as many overtakes in Saudi Arabia this year compared to last for example, and I definitely don't think that the we're seeing similar racing to 2021 unless we're only looking at the final standings after the races, so agree to disagree on that one.