I used to agree with that, but I rewatched DS9 over the Pandemic, and frankly, whilst it wasn't in as high gear as it eventually got to, it's not true that it was confused and the first two seasons are actually full of excellent episodes and there's a clear direction to it. It'd say it's actually slightly better than SNW season 1/2, despite loving Pike and his crew, because SNW, whilst a huge improvement from Discovery, still doesn't really like to actually "engage brain" and has had a few dumb and one offensively stupid episodes where the writers revealed they basically don't understand how certain aspects of the world works (the most egregious being the actually-offensive courtroom one, which I surprised you don't have words about, perhaps you have been so desensitized by many decades of truly terrible near-sighted US courtroom dramas - but there is zero possibility the Federation, of all organisations, would use the anti-justice, antediluvian and pernicious "fruit of the poison tree" legal doctrine - you might as well tell me the Federation opposes trans rights) and much worse, don't have the moral clarity and consistency of TNG/DS9 (even in darkness, DS9's moral clarity was remarkable - Sisko et al knew when they were doing the wrong thing for the right reasons or vice-versa).
Mostly is a load-bearing word there. There's absolutely been filler. Not TNG levels of filler (let alone VOY or ENT!), but there have been episodes which really didn't have much to say. And I think if we were looking at 22 or 24 episode seasons we'd see about TNG levels of filler. But I'd still like that! Even the filler episodes tend to be good, like a lot of later TNG filler.
I guess I sound kind of down on SNW, but like, I'm actually down on hyperbole about SNW. It is, I think absolutely, the second-best first two seasons of a Trek show and was the first-best first season! What I'm hoping is it doesn't become the third-best third season and I think it'll be okay because, I also re-watched TNG during the Pandemic and... it still was kind of touch-and-go at times in S3 (where DS9 is absolutely full impulse).
I do feel there's a problem with the writing at times where the writers are sort of overconfident with some of the morals and points, and that's bad because they don't quite get the Federation (nor IDIC even) in the way that TNG, DS9, and weirdly, so weirdly, particularly The Orville gets it (also Lower Decks to a lesser extent). That they at times, are a bit too close to a sort of limp unreflective mainstream socially-liberal present-day centrist kind of politics, a sort of... Hamilton-brained kind of deal, rather than the distinctly more radical concepts of the Federation. Luckily, about 80% of episodes don't even touch on this stuff, only touching on the more typically relevant aspects of the Federation.
Again though, I criticise because I love here!
SNW is a great show. It's a 9/10 show. But there are some real discordant notes that, just so weirdly, The bloody Orville of all bloody shows managed to eliminate (by S3), whilst also playing considerably more dangerous and risky tunes than SNW has yet attempted.
(I don't think I will ever get over how much, by S3, The Orville had exceeded my expectations, particularly as a "Federation fan".)