I think that food makes clerics more fun and relevant. You get to use your spells proactively instead of having to save up to healbot between encounters. Now I can use aggressive spells and buffs way more freely than I could without food. It feels as good as a Pathfinder cleric where healing is basically a separate resource from spells.
As far as advantage goes, yes bless is slightly worse but its still absolutely amazing. +1d4 is still a huge increase to the chance of succeeding a roll and you get to apply it to many many rolls per casting. I think it's just hard to notice because we don't see every roll we're making. Bringing downed teammates backup is the best use of healing word by a ton anyways.
Shadowheart is very far from optimal, but I still found her incredibly useful.
