Edger! Hi!
I hadn't seen him since he "scaled up" either. My last Billy shows prior to this run were probably around 2018 or 2019 when he was still opening up for Greensky. Whole different ballgame now. Quite a spectacle, in the best way.
As for the Dead covers thing, there actually was a bit of a statement about it. Someone on IG noted that there hadn't been any Dead covers in a while. Billy himself commented to say it was a conscious decision on his part because, among other things, he grew tired of people yelling out requests for those songs at his shows and he wants to leave those songs to other people. He's done some great things with that catalog over the past 2-3 years especially, but I get why he would want to step back from it. Here's a little write-up about it:
https://www.jambase.com/article/billy-strings-grateful-dead-covers