This seems like its really a fault of a poor DM; at the very least you can fudge some rules to make simple combat simpler (ie goblins share initiative), and of course, avoid summoning them when the moods not right.

And you hardly have to go to the length of explanation to make them more interesting: give them scouts, a simple power structure, basic tech (stick+stone spear, carts, etc) and you have more than enough justification to pull more interesting fights out them. A goblin runs, presumably informs some leader, and soon you get a swarm out. You don't need to explain this; rather its what you'd expect to happen, if you saw a goblin with a scope or something.

I mean, it doesn't really matter. Its trivial to fudge the lore on the fly, and to skip dull encounters entirely. I think they still hold value in terms of flavor (territorial control and general threat of the area), and for giving players a way to acknowledge growth (compare lvl 1 fights vs lvl 10 with a horde).

Actively dreading them, I think, is the result of an overly mechanical DM. You're basically operating like a CRPG would, incapable of gauging whether a horde should attack, stuck with whatever the dice rolls.

And hell, fudge the spawn roll. Interrupt the fight with a dragon. Force tactics onto them, by "accident": a group of goblins was ahead of the players, and a group behind, when they stumbled into the players. An accidental surrounding, and you keep your braindead goblins.

Worst case scenario: Claim new species and beef up their stats/int and make them as threatening as you want, while keeping general goblin lore.

They're too damn simple a monster to hate. You can do almost anything you want with them and get away with it

Not to overthink it too much, but the idea that goblins are hardly more intelligent than rats (despite the game stats) doesn't really make sense in-universe. They can use weapons! Maybe they aren't as intelligent as humans/elves, but they are more than dumb animals.