Well tbh, without wanting to offend you, you would like the show to be a happy-go-lucky adventure. With an overpowered MC, who struggles but wins pretty much. After the second try. But in my opinion the show gets a lot "deeper" with this kind of struggle. Furthermore, COULD BE A BIG SPOILER IF U HAVEN'T READ THE MANGA. I am not sure where and when but Saiba explains that Soma is not a natural talent but rather a hard worker who will not give up on defeat. So Somas speciality is more or les this, while hayama has his nose. That's more or less what makes Soma a unique char rather than another Shonen-MC. The point of Soma loosing 2 times and not giving up enforces this side of his character which is rather important. So to sumarise my to long text: This Anime/Manga is at the start: building chars etc. And both arcs are trying to embrace soma as a not giving up char.

To come to your question: Yes u would want to embrace Soma but try getting empathy for sidechars as well. Hayama has done nothing but cooking all his life, trained all his life so his nose would be the best. With the last arc, the show gets argueably a bit deeper, as a more defined enemy turns up and u can see anyone from before rather as sidechars, (compare to Ruffy getting his crewmembers). But yeah Soma takes small wins, only to see a bigger obstacle in fromt of him. But that's what Shonnen is made of right? And that's what the previous arcs were about as well. Strong evil boss. MC trains, defeats boss. New Boss appaeres.

To see u as the best example is not the best idea as the manga who has the same storyline and is just a bit more outdrawn, storywise, is selling very good. But as many ppl previously said there prob won't be any new episodes anyway.

Sokugeki no soma is a pretty nice manga and u would want to continue to read, but if u can't handle the MC loosing, or at least partly loosing u honestly shouldn't continue as there are many obstacles and sad moments ahead. From my perspective u seem to rather enjoy happy animes, while this has his ups and downs, it's leading phrase would be "Failure is the key to success". The problem with the anime is that the arcs are ended, which gives a sour feeling of more or less being at the same point as before. But a end like this should invite u to read watch further. It's like watching/reading harry potter until Sirius dies, and then stopping to read. Because u don't want harry to loose again.