I’ve never found I really had to put much thought into the military side of the game honestly, but I agree that the new update has shifted a lot of the focus on to a more abstract thing happening on your planets.
Granted, I actually like that shift in focus. I have other space games where I can put a lot of brain power into designing spaceships and making them more effectively pew pew against other spaceships. There aren’t very many space games that really let me do what Stellaris does now.
This reminds me a lot of how there was a ton of vitriol when 2.0 came around removing warp and wormhole drives. With the degree/level of changes done, players basically get left with a way different game. If you’re like me and onboard with the changes overall, it’s great. If you aren’t behind those, I can see why it would be frustrating.