This thread’s title isn’t giving any information about what it is about, plus it suggests to forum readers Picard didn’t improve over (an undefined) time, and such statement is almost insulting for people that are building Picard since 20+ years.
As said above, the feature you asked in January 2020 ( Is there a way to deny MusicBrainz Picard the ability to put anything, and I mean anything, into a compilation album?) was added in 2.3.1, released in February 2020 (Picard 2.3.1 released – MetaBrainz Blog PICARD-1771).
If I understand correctly, you complain about a free and open source application using free collaborative open data not auto-taggging thousands of (likely illegally downloaded) random tracks that don’t even have basic metadata correct.
Our community and especially people answering here are tagging thousands of files (sometimes much more) and all know tagging (and all what it implies) isn’t an easy task, and takes a lot of time. Building a database containing needed information too.
So if “Doing this manually takes so much time (at least when you’ve downloaded torrents with thousand of songs to sort trough) that it’s a complete turn off.” may be you should just download less stuff, buy your music to actually support artists and to get decent basic metadata, and lessen your expectations regarding tagging applications.
Tagging audio files, especially if badly sourced, with incorrect or missing basic metadata or even audio, is taking time.
If you rely on Acoustid, even if AcoustID is associated with MB recording, Picard cannot know from which release the track is coming from, if there are multiple releases containing this recording.
This is why Picard will let you chose whichever release you want, among existing ones.
If the release you think the track comes from doesn’t exist isn’t yet in the database you’ll have to add it (and this will take time too, a lot). This is what was said in Is there a way to deny MusicBrainz Picard the ability to put anything, and I mean anything, into a compilation album? - #17 by Freso already (thread initiated by you).
So, if you feel something can be improved, explain clearly what you expect, and create a matching ticket so Picard devs can keep track of it.
Be very specific, give details and examples, suggest how it could be improved, don’t forget you’re only one user among millions.
If you have an issue, describe it, with details, and follow hints provided by the community.
When creating a thread, think about a title that’s useful for the community and future readers.
Yes, all this takes time, but open source/data community is still giving it for free.
EDIT: Original poster changed the title from " I was hoping Picard had gotten better" to “Why isn’t it possible to tell Picard that I only want the original album, no matter what?”, thanks.