I dunno, with the addition of beer and wine on the
DDP, you can typically come out even-ish. My family loves eating out and we enjoy having a sit down meal once a day. With the kids we do all the character meals. I don't think it's too much food. I never felt over fed and the experience we get with it is great.
I did the math my last trip and it was about even and we ate what we normally would have if we didn't care about everything. Probably would have spent more because I would have ordered apps with all of our meals since I'm not a dessert guy (but I'll still eat it!).
It really depends on you as a family, like in all of these debates. You can certainly eat less expensively and still have good food. Those options are there. There are certainly places where the food is not great, but being a Disney fanatic that we all are, we all know those places and avoid them. I've done exercises before, because I'm crazy, where I picked out meals for each person in my family and priced out each meal and snack and it's roughly -+ $10-30 a day
I also don't think it requires a ton of planning to get the most out of the DDP. Pre-COVID, you would pick a restaurant each day at 180 days and book it. Then as you get closer to your vacation or even while you're on vacation, you cancel and rebook. I've done it plenty of times. Just educate yourself on the options you have at each park and don't sit for a crappy burger when you can get better quick service options.