Recently, a bunch of new L1/L2 projects have started incentivizing TVL growth, and old users are complaining about "mining, selling, and withdrawing."

What I care more about is: even if there's no mining, someone is always "cutting in line" on the chain.
To be honest, MEV isn't some mysterious concept; most of the time, it's about who can get their transaction included in the block first, or who can sandwich your transaction.
The ones affected are often not the big players, but ordinary people doing small swaps, chasing new mints, and getting slippage filled up, thinking they're just slow.
The word "fairness" sounds ideal, but at least the mechanism needs to be clear: who determines the order, how to prevent abuse, and who bears the cost of failure.
I try to avoid rushing in during the most crowded times now, keeping my positions smaller to avoid getting educated.