They say it's detectable all the time, though!

This isn't a random, one-off comment - in every series, it's mentioned over and over again how much better non-replicated food is. And getting better/ upgraded food patterns, and so on and so forth.

Hell, it even took Picard a while to get his tea made right.

Now that said, it's mostly a software issue, not a hardware issue.

But it isn't a placebo.