A complete lack of examples. And when there is examples, they're absurd.
Of course the results are general for a super general search intent keyword. Of course the results are bad for super obscure 0 search volume keywords.
I don't think Google's perfect, far from it, but a lot of the criticism in these types of threads is limp and based on unrealistic expectations.
Consider the difference in results between Google and what you might expect if directories rather than search had remained the primary way of finding things on the web. A search for "instant noodles" assumes you either want to buy them, find recipes for them, or read about whether they are healthy. But a directory topic "instant noodles" would find sites about instant noodles. And sure enough, if you hunt through search results, you can find things like https://www.theramenrater.com/ which definitely fits the bill, but it takes some hunting. It's a "page four" type of result (in reality, it was on page five).
So, yes, this is a general topic and you get general results... but that's not how directories worked. A directory listing for "Instant noodles" would never have included Walmart and Amazon searches. It wouldn't have included random news articles on whether or not they're healthy. And in the days of blogrolls and web-rings and such, once you found one site, you usually had a way to get to more human-curated related sites without even returning to the directory.
Not denying there's some rose tint here, but there's a big difference in how human-curated topical browsing differs from search.
Your example of Ramen Rater is the #1 result for the query [instant noodle reviews]. The more broad [instant noodles] has Wikipedia as the #1 result, which covers the "about" intent case you mentioned.
I didn't specifically want instant noodle reviews. I just wanted sites about instant noodles. If they happen to be reviews, cool. If they are photo galleries, that's cool too. Message boards, also cool. But I don't want articles or encyclopedia or dictionary entries about instant noodles. I want full sites, or at least large subsections of sites, where the primary topic is instant noodles. This is what directories list. Sites where you open the site and ask "what's this site about" and the answer is clearly "instant noodles". Not at the page level, but at the site level.