My only trip to BC was 2 years ago near the end of the season. What you describe was not my experience at all. 15 minute waits at the bottom, at least 5 minute waits on the mid-mountain lifts. People ööööing everywhere. No cookies at the end of the day. Impossible to get a reservation to eat on the mountain for lunch (COVID bullshit- I'll let that slide). Pain in the ass to get from one side of the mountain to the other. I'd far rather ski somewhere else. As far as the best mountain close to Denver? Maybe. But when I'm flying in, I'd rather go to Snowmass or Steamboat. Or Utah.
Steamboat, Snowmass, and Crested Butte are by far better mountains. Hell, I'd take Wolf Creek over any of them for the on-mountain (less so the apres). But they're all 3 hours+ from Denver. And when you live in Denver, you can't generally do that every week. So if you're looking for something nearby Denver, BC is where it's at.
"2 years ago" → this was your issue. That was the "coming back from COVID" year, where
everything - including all the infrastructure - was wonky. Waits at BC were still shorter than the rest of the nearby big mountains -
Vail was averaging hour-long lift lines at the bottom that year, and the mid-mountain lifts weren't much better. All because of COVID worker slowdown, as well as Vail drastically dropping its pass prices (which led to more people signing up than they anticipated).
In short, the COVID BS was a lot more than just reservations on the mountain for lunch. I wouldn't judge any mountain by an experience from 2 years ago.