I use Google Voice which has elements of VVM. There are times when messages have been 100% or nearly 100% audio without text. For me the issue seemed to be how clearly the caller spoke or if there was background noise during their call. I assume it was the systems inability to transcribe the caller.
I have several questions about your case however.
Is there a pattern to when it works and when it doesn't? Like have you noticed that it is usually calls when you're out, calls when you're home, calls that you dismiss?
Is it always the same callers who don't get transcribed? If it seems to be the same callers there could be something on their end causing issues. Like their device, speech cadence, voice tone, their voice volume...
Is there any distinguishable audio issues with the messages, like anything I described before?
If you received two calls back to back what are the odds, in your opinion, that one would be transcribed and one would not? This then brings up, what do you feel the percentage of transcribed vs non-transcribed calls are? 1 in 10, 4 in 10 non-transcribed?
Have you checked the AT&T boards to see if others are complaining of similar issues? I mean you're here in the Note 20 forum and haven't gotten one comment, I'm experiencing this too, but while these are all Note owners, not all of them are on AT&T, not all of them are subscribed to VVM and on and on. So your pool is pretty shallow here. I would imagine that most would assume that it was AT&T's fault/issue and take to their boards for answers or to complain. There you would have a much deeper pool and I really don't see this being the device, although you mention that previous devices didn't appear to have these issues, but VVM isn't controlled by the device it is controlled by the carrier. Calls aren't directed by the device, they are directed by the carrier and only relayed to the device. Just a thought.