As a counter point, I've been using CC since December and I've never really had any problems with it. It's always done exactly what I want it to and I continue to be blown away by its capabilities, regardless of which of their models I've used. I also almost never burn through my $200/m plan.
I'm actually building a MUD powered in part by LLMs so this is very timely. It never occurred to me to use it to evaluate LLMs, which is a really neat idea. I'll be keeping an eye on this project.