The store near me gets lots of foot traffic, but the experience is just fine. There are usually at least 2-3 employees who will come up and ask me how I'm doing and what they can help with. Given the size of the store, the number of employees is surprising actually. And it's as easy as ever to book appointments, in my experience anyway.
I think what's changed is that the novelty has worn off. When Apple Stores first became a thing, it was new and sexy. Now, they're everywhere and don't have that wow factor, because it's become a feature of our lives that you go there every so often if you want to try out, fix or buy an apple product in person. And with the novelty factor gone, people find things to complain about if their experience isn't perfect, even though Apple's customer service is still light years ahead of most anyone else [0].
[0] I say this as an Android and Lenovo X1 user. I personally prefer non-mac products, but my wife has a Macbook Pro and an iPhone and I'm always jealous that when things break, she can get them fixed right away, while I worry that a fix will entail multiple unpleasant interactions with phone agents, followed by a multi-week repair process.
EDIT: I want to add two ideas here in the hope that someone here finds them helpful. When I make laptop purchases (for non-apple products), the first place I look is Costco. They offered the Carbon X1 laptop with pretty good specs (16gb RAM, i7 processor, 512GB SSD. Similar specs on the Dell XPS 13 that they sell) at a great price, with a 90 day, no questions asked return policy and an extra year of warranty included in the already great price. Even if you aren't a costco member, it's probably worth joining for this deal if you are looking to get a Dell or Lenovo laptop. And in my experience, Costco is very easy to deal with when problems arise.
A second idea is to buy using a Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, which also add a year on to the manufacturer's warranty. Usually, they require you to get a quote from a repair shop and they will reimburse you. In some cases, they will just replace the product straight up. And they are fairly easy to work with. This is the only card I use to make purchases that I know have a chance of breaking.