> I may be remembering incorrectly, but I honestly think it was better when it was released years ago than it is today.

I think you're remembering correctly. Siri used to work much better for basic tasks, and didn't seem to randomly fail for no discernible reason. I can't remember what iOS updates changed things, but there were at least a few that absolutely degraded Siri's functionality. One that stuck out to me was when Siri was one day suddenly unable to correctly respond to "play all songs shuffled" - it worked fine for years, but after an update, just decided it couldn't do that anymore.