“Needless to say” is so kindergarten. It’s so disingenous. If you say “Needless to say,” you actually confuse the meaning of the amount of needing to say something.

Either
1) you really don’t need to say it but are saying it anyway and apologizing for that by throwing in “needless to say”
2) you do (need to say it), but you want to make it seem like you don’t.
3) You do need to say it but you want to make everyone feel like they should have known it already.

Either way, the phrase serves more as a marker of calling attention to the phrase after it, than conveying the actual amount of need of saying. So instead of saying “Needless to say,” I’m going to start saying “I’d like to draw attention to the phrase after this opening clause, and I’d also like to make you vaguely uncomfortable about whether or not you should have known this information already.”

Goes in the same camp with “Clearly”, “As we all know,” and “I know I don’t need to say it, but…” It’s all bad directing. It’s all telegraphing.

Needless to say, I like the phrase more after having written this post than I did at the beginning.