Evil is incredibly useful in D&D. Having the setting slap the label of evil on things simplifies things for players and GMs in concrete, practical gameplay ways.
For GMs, it allows the shortest possible path to a plot, because "Stop Evil" is a fantastic all-purpose motivation.
Intrinsically evil orcs allows the GM to literally say "There are orcs here" and now it's a plot to resolve with violence!
Evil is an easy motivation for conflict, but it is far from the *only* reason for conflict. For evidence of this, please look to all of human history.
Context is awesome. It makes the world feel more alive. It makes the choices and actions of the characters feel like they have meaning.
And the thing is, we know this.
All this change does is say there are more people
That's awesome
But the other reason I go through all of this is that if you think this has somehow removed the essential conflict from D&D, then I think you may find that your idea of the central conflict is not universal.
But robo-garbage or not, it's worth saying they're wrong. :)
If you need essential conflict, D&D still has a TON of options. Undead are the classic, of course, but Eberron did a wonderful job of illustrating that Aberrrations could be used in a consistent way to make Cthulhu you could fight.
Plus, the is D&D - reskinning is one of the easiest mechanical things to do.
If you need something to fill the *role* of Orcs in an adventure, you can reskin them.
All this asks is that you think about it a *little*.
it is very easy to tell when someone has decided that an evil race is cool, because abruptly they start getting backstory and nuance. Look to the Gith and the Drow for really clear examples
So, lean into the stuff you like. Use that enjoyment as an excuse to make it richer.
D&D is a game where many problems are resolved with violence. You can apply nuance to this, tune it and clean it up, but at it's heart, D&D is about fighting stuff.
That creates a tricky line to walk.
(Unless you're intentionally killing the orcs as a race proxy, in which case you can kind of fuck right off)
Stay safe, all.