Queen's Gambit Declined

Pros

• I always avoided the QGD for the same reason, but my experience playing the opening has been quite different. Black is very solid, yes, but you get a wide variety of positions and some can be very fun.
• Against 1. d4 I play QGD, but I understand that's not everyone's cup of tea. But finding a system I liked against 1. d4 took a long time and in the end the QGD gives me the best positions consistently.
• QGD ... these are the absolute top tier openings, that have been at the top level forever. They're all quite flexible, so you can play them in very solid ways, or you can also play them in very dynamic, sharp ways.
• As Black very easy is to just play the QGD against 1.d4, there is not much White can do and you will always have a decent position to play
• When I sped run from 2050s to 2200 USCF, I played the QGD four times in open events and scored 3.5/4. Not drawish at all imo

Cons

• Against the QG I've been playing QGD for months now in order to 'take my vitamins' but I basically do not know theory beyond e6, d5, Nf6, Be7, 0-0, playing c5 at random and struggling with the bad bishop. I know that the entire deal is t...
• I've been looking at openings vs d4, and I like the QGD mainlines. Its so cool to play things that were played by your heroes. Like everyone plays the QGD! I'm just worried it is too drawish for an open tournament in the US. I played it...
• In any case my question is as black when you go for the QGD, what’s the plan against the Catalan? There you can indeed go for an endgame but those are generally unpleasant for black and hard to lose as white.