Online play was a godsend during lockdown, and introduced me to all sorts of digital tools our group still uses. If I ever meet that nice Mr. Strahd, I'll have to buy him a drink for that alone.
But damn, if we couldn't wait to go back to in-person play. For a bunch of 30-40 year old folks with jobs and kids and other assorted awkward bollocks, in-the-flesh DnD has been a magnificent way for us to enrich old friendships - and, even better for people our age, develop new ones.
And it does this without a requirement to get smashed at the pub, which is still very much the default socialising technique over here. Not that I mind getting fucked up, but I'm always on the lookout for ways to hang out with friends that doesn't revolve 100% around booze. Getting to share collaborative story-telling with my people around a table still feels every bit as special now as it did when we started 15 odd years ago.
The 4e minion with this exact adjustment you describe is precisely how our our table handles it.
My players love it when I throw swarms at them - an epic pile of miniatures on the table, carving a swathe through your enemies... it's great power fantasy stuff, and a nice way of emphasising how powerful leveled characters are.