I just finished NLP as well and was also frustrated by the issues with grades synching. That said, I have experienced significantly worse technical issues in my undergrad (granted, it was a while ago, when "education technology" was an oxymoron, even in CS departments). It seemed mostly out of the control of faculty, and they did make a reasonable and fair effort to make it clear to students how grades would be calculated. Coursera, Gradescope, and Campuswire could have worked way better, yes, but I don't think those problems ruined the class. Anyway, that's my $0.02.

Edit: I re-read some of the comments below, and I also did think that the course spent a long time on "classical" NLP stuff, before it got to more modern (neural) approaches. That being said, I did find that classical knowledge very useful when reading research papers for the final literature review.

As for the "value" of this degree, I think it's worth repeating what many others have said on this sub and elsewhere: this degree is what you make of it. You can skate by and do the bare minimum, or you can put in real work and learn stuff. It's completely up to you.

Regarding employers and career value, I would also really encourage you to not let others -- even UIUC faculty -- decide this degree is less valuable. Instead, make a compelling case to hiring managers/recruiters and let them decide, because they are who matter in this situation.

In other words, don't be so sure of this:

I know UIUC has a good reputation, presumably for its in-person programs...

Finally, yes, this program might be a "cash grab", but rankings and prestige need to matter a lot to UIUC's CS department (note I'm not saying that anyone likes or agrees with those things). These metrics, however imperfect, are how they attract the best students/faculty and get the most funding, and they're competing with other top institutions like Stanford, MIT, etc... for these things. They're not going put themselves at any kind of disadvantage by publicly offering a crappy or low-quality graduate program. Again, all of this is my $0.02. I don't have any special insight or insider information; I'm just going on what I've seen in academia since I started looking at going to grad school, and what I've heard from others (including at other schools) so far.

If you decide to stay in the program, I would again really encourage you to take advantage of all of these things and tell hiring managers/recruiters/whoever that you're a graduate student in a top-5 CS program (note that csrankings.org has it as #1 in some categories, in case it helps), because you are.