You can’t convey the same intensity in CGI battles as you can in practical stunt work battles.

For this, I would contrast the space battles in older Star Trek series vs new ones. Back in the days when ships had to be physically modeled, space battles, except for the real series-defining ones, would have just a few space ships. You would probably know each ship by name and have seen some of its crew. They meant something. They seemed real. When you see a ship get destroyed, you're just watching characters you saw earlier in the episode die. It makes the stakes feel real, as if these are real space ships crewed by actual people. But compare that to the battles seen in a show like Discovery. They'll have massive space battles with giant armadas of nameless ships, none of which the audience cares at all about.

I think there was a time when CGI was new and novel, and the ability to depict massive battles without hiring and costuming thousands of extras was truly revolutionary. But the novelty has worn off. Big still has its place, but battles shouldn't be big just for the sake of being big.