As a researcher who has (and continues to) use the publicly available census data, I agree with this.

IMO it makes more sense to have higher quality micro level data products that are only available in statistical data centers, https://www.census.gov/about/adrm/fsrdc.html, as opposed to these aggregate tables that even before all this were of variable quality.

This comes with a cost that not everyone can have easy access to the data anymore, but I think that will result in higher quality research in the end (even if less quantity overall).

Apportionment should be done in some standard way as well by states/fed instead of the gerrymandering mess we have now, but unfortunately that is not likely to happen anytime soon.