I hate duplicate stitch and its prevalence in social media

First things first, all knitting techniques are valid and have their place in the craft, and all people can have their preference. I get it. Duplicate stitch is indeed superior for small, intricate colorwork elements.

BUT! I hate it so so much when I see a beautiful preview of a colorwork piece on Instagram (or elsewhere) only to find out that the whole gigantic ass picture there was done with duplicate stitch. Like, I opened it out of curiosity for the pattern, I'm interested in seeing technical solutions other people opted for (even if it's stranded colorwork for a small item in front of the sweater... anyway). What I see instead is not even knitting, FFS, it's embroidery meant to look like knitting!

And yeah, the finished fabric won't have the same drape, and you'll still have to weave in the ends, so it's not even a good shortcut for proper colorwork techniques.