My organization has been setting this up and we even have followed an extensive and expensive course detailing how it is wonderful and efficient, but it seems like it is a calcification of traditional roles + a lot of process and nonsensical rituals, with nothing really agile going on except having sprints.
we are maybe 10/15 scrum teams on a project and I quite like PI plannings, it gives much better dependencies between teams, and realistic goals every 3 months. Everything else is not that great or badly implemented where I work.
But overall I think it is a net gain from the pre SAFE time, where dependencies were systematically badly or over optimistic leading to long delays
Nope. Last company I were where it was followed was a trainwreck of productivity. SAFe was a contributor to that. Excruciating long and boring procedures that made the bureaucrats and busy-talkers happy and everyone else miserable.