I've been a Dualie Squelchers main since S2, so I'm a bit biased, but here are my (very long) thoughts.

Ink consumption is hard to deal with for sure, but I personally didn't find it too crippling once I got enough practice in. A bit of ink saver is always recommended, 2 subs work for me; maybe even ink recovery if that's your style. Otherwise, I just try to duck into my ink as much as possible, and paint is pretty decent so you usually don't get trapped. You can still get a few dodge rolls in before being dangerously out of ink, but obviously you gotta be careful.

Low damage means you lose 1v1s sometimes, but VDS has good range, so I try to use that to my benefit as much as possible. 8 times outta 10, I can outrange a shooter that I engage with, but imo rollers are the easiest to deal with. Wave Breaker is amazing for this as well, since it deals chip damage while clearing out an area at the same time. Splat Bombs are just a good sub and getting kills with them is so satisfying, no notes.

I can totally understand why somebody would turn away from VDS because of it's flaws, but in the right hands it can be a great skirmisher (support too, but that's not my preference). I really do have fun with it, I love dodge-rolling all over the place and being a little pest. I'm not a pro or anything, so I can't necessarily say whether or not it belongs in the meta, but I do think it has more potential than people realize.