Lately, I've been watching that pile of "perfect transactions" on the chain, and the more I look, the more it feels like poetry: with two transactions sandwiched together, mine just serves as the transaction fee with a leek flavor.

People call it arbitrage opportunities, but actually, most of the time what you see is just someone eating a sandwich on the tablecloth.
When slippage gets big, I start to get sarcastic: no matter how beautiful the route optimization is, it can't stop someone who can cut in line better than you.
Airdrop season is even more ridiculous; task platforms are so anti-witch-hunt that I feel like clocking in for work, with points and coupons to the limit, and in the end, you have to pay a "toll" before the transaction is on-chain.
Anyway, I now prefer to do less, splitting orders, setting limit prices, choosing less congested times—avoiding being used as material whenever possible.
If you're really going all in, just ask yourself first: is this deal earning for me, or just feeding someone else?