One of the great things about Minecraft is game play can be tailored to a player's particular tastes. In this instance: if you want to dig straight down and build a branch mine to get diamonds and iron, you can; if you want to take the more risky route of exploring caves, you can. Personally, I fall into the former category since my main interests lay in exploration and building. Dropping down to the bottom of the world is a quick way to get the resources required to craft an enchantment table and suit up in armor, leaving more time to explore the surface for things like jungles, mesas, sunken ships, and anything else that will provide the resources for my latest build.
Does 1.18 change things? I'm trying to keep an open mind, trying to convince myself that the new ore distribution adds nuance to my opening moves. When that conviction fails, I look for other things that hold promise. Something that I've toyed around with doing in the past is creating a Zork-esque underground empire, but have always held back on those plans since the old cave networks were bland and cramped. Yet the new underground biomes make such a project more appealing.
Does 1.18 change things? I'm trying to keep an open mind, trying to convince myself that the new ore distribution adds nuance to my opening moves. When that conviction fails, I look for other things that hold promise. Something that I've toyed around with doing in the past is creating a Zork-esque underground empire, but have always held back on those plans since the old cave networks were bland and cramped. Yet the new underground biomes make such a project more appealing.