It's not just DFW.
I live in north central North Carolina. There are at least four repeaters (2m and 70cm, plus a 1.25m, I think) that are reachable from my (below terrain) home with a hand held. Of those, the only one I have ever heard is the one I use during the first half of my morning commute, and the last half on the way home. At the halfway point, roughly, I switch over to another repeater on a 1400' TV tower, and about every third or fourth day, I'll hear someone on that repeater during the half hour or so I can hear it (terrain is the limiter, not distance, in this foothills area -- I can reach it from a hilltop near my home, nearly 40 miles, with my 8W hand held).
Now, I haven't spent hours and hours listening to other local repeaters -- I don't have that time for ones that aren't reachable from my home -- but with only one in four I can reach having any kind of semi-regular activity, I'd have to say "congested" is the wrong word. And yet there isn't enough linkage to let me check in on my club's weekly net with a receiver I can reach.
What needs to be fixed is the links between repeaters, not the number. We've seemingly got more repeaters than we really need already (and I can't imagine the money that's been poured into these things, for equipment and space leases) -- but, at least here, you can't actually talk to anyone on any of them.