For a while, 65 between 80/94 and 865 was pretty good, just some work around Lafayette. Now, it's a complete shit show, especially around Lebanon. Used to be able to fly through there, now it's two divided lanes. Then where it was three lanes is all under construction. Why? It was in good shape.
The 65 being closed in downtown has been like that for about a year, like you said. The last few trips I've done to my dad's I'll take 65-865-465-74-275-75-64. Recently there has been construction on 74 east of St. Leon, where Indiana SR-1 ties in. So I'll drop down SR-1 to 275. As long as you don't get stuck behind a slow car, it's actually faster than taking 74 to 275.
On my last trip down (a week ago) I was so fed up with the construction I took the reverse trip, 75-275-SR1-74-465-65. But I got off at Remington (IN-24), topped off at the Pilot, then went west on 24. Took that over to 52, and then caught 57. Seeing as how it was midnight while doing this, there was no traffic (on 24 and 52).
Downsides to that... 24 is in good shape, but you pass through some small towns. Right when 24 becomes four lanes and billiard table smooth is where you catch US-52. 52 isn't the smooth road, and also a few small towns. But it's not bad, and you're not in a construction zone. The bad, as soon as you get on 57 you're in a construction zone, single lane. I got stuck behind a group of three semis. The first two cruised through about 65mph, and the third one was dragging his ass doing 40-45mph. Even at 12:30am by the time we got out from that first construction zone there had to be at least 40-50 cars stacked up behind us. One fucking truck driver holding everyone up. You get a few miles of open road, then another single lane construction zone. Lesson learned there. I have to go back down in a few weeks, so I'll probably take IN-41 to IN-24 (to I-65), instead of I-57 to US-52.
