Anyway.
Making things both viable through a social route and a combat route is hard and DnD will never get there.

That being said I appreciate the stepping off the "murdering everything" philosophy especially when making an adventure for kids.

I just wish this wasn't at the cost of quality.

Creatures don't feel inherently evil, sure. But they don't feel real either.
Obviously this stems from WotC not having any stance on anything other than money.

You can't have bad guys if you don't have any particular ideology (or rather if you are the bad guy). So it all feels bland.

It's weird.
In that same cave there's also a giant spider that doesn't eat goblins. The assumption is that the goblins are friendly to this spider. Maybe it's even their pet, or at the very least their security.
Kill the spider and nothing happens.
The goblins won't even ask about it.

The module doesn't tell you what happens to the goblins but I know dnd. You kill them.
Similarly, in that same cave, there's a dwarf kidnapped.
There's no explanation for what the goblins had intended for their prisoner. Were they going to eat them?
Well maybe you shouldn't be partying with them.

Let's see the goblin cave for example:
Goblins are having a birthday party!!! Yayyyy!!
When you get to the party the goblin chief will be angry that you have invaded their home while at a party.
Make a charisma roll.
If you succed: yay! You join the party!
If you fail: fight all the goblins

And I get that this comes from the idea that enemies are more fun when they are not inherently evil and I want to agree, but in the end, dnd is a combat game.

The modern version however tried to give a central conflict to each cave. Enemies are not there to be killed (not all of them at least), some are just in need of help or minding their own business and will deliberately talk to the party. Fighting is always there but not forced upon the players.

While both the original and the modern caves are a mix of combat and dialogue, the original had a single thought:
Make enemies fight themselves.
For the most part, you are there to kill every monster in the cave and don't ask too many questions.

Each cave has a vastly different setting from one another and a plot that is almost always disconnected from the rest of the caves, but at their core they are fun miniature dungeons with each a different gimmick to understand and that's kinda whimsy.

I find it funny that the new version of the caves of chaos makes way less sense than the already silly apartment complex for monsters that was the original.
That being said I *really* like the mini dungeons with their own plot that heroes does.

The other site was horrible cause all discussion about OSR's is mainly fascists so we're going back in here.

Say it!!

Unironically I read CSM part 1.