Sam

Cooked, tender, and tasting like the ingredients separately. That is exactly the failure and it is fixable.

Skipping browning is defensible on a weeknight and it is worth being honest about what it costs: not flavour in general, but specifically the deep savoury layer people are chasing when they say a dish tastes flat.

If you skip it, compensate with something concentrated at the start rather than expecting the long cook to build it. It will not.