I feel like you guys just aimlessly throw pokeballs and pray for the best
There is multiple factors that determine your chance of catching a pokemon when you throw a ball, if past level 20 you can not get a great/excellent catch then you probably weren't trying to master catching as much as you should, the better the throw the better chance you have to catch them.
I still don't have any major issues with pokemon running away or requiring so many pokeballs to catch and I usually get great/excellent + curveball.
Pokemon still move accordingly in the nearby tab, still pretty easy to track them.