1.18 Ideas After a Whole 12 Hour day digging in

The biggest thing that I have noticed in 1.18.1 is the ore generation has become much more difficult. I have had a lot of success following the chart to find Diamond, Copper, and some Lapus. However, even when digging at suggested levels for Iron I am having a very hard time coming up with more than 5-10 pieces at a time. Have found lots of Redstone, and a fair amount of Gold (comparable to previous versions). 

The other issue I have had is with Zombies. I believe their attack animations have gotten a little faster, and they seem to be harder to hit at normal range, unless I strike them very very slow. This makes encounters in the underground more difficult. 

The only other issue I have had with Zombies is at y -16. I encountered a situation where I heard a lot of zombies near an area of my mining tunnels. I figured out that they were 1 level above the shaft that I had dug out. It was a hallway 4 blocks square, that ran for about 50 to 60 blocks. Once the zombie noise got heavy (IE 8-12 Zombies) they started appearing in the hallway behind me. This was even though the light levels exceeded 4 per block (all the way down) and there being no holes or access for them to get in. But it was the same zombies that should have been above me. 

Idk if they passed through a block somewhere due to crowding or what. But I kept dying on that world and had to take a break. Eventually I went back to my 1st 1.18.1 world and worked on that one.