Hello,
First of all, thank you for clearly and thoroughly expressing your situation and frustrations.
I believe it’s important to distinguish between the experience of an administrator and that of a user. In my opinion, users of Discourse don’t struggle with this platform any more than they would with similar ones. However, the experience for administrators is indeed quite different.
Discourse is an extremely powerful platform, but its complexity is undeniable. Personally, I wouldn’t generalize my experience: having used similar platforms over twenty-five years ago, I’m accustomed to this type of tool and its intricacies. That said, even as a highly experienced administrator, I must admit that in recent weeks or months, I’ve felt somewhat overwhelmed by the rapid pace of updates and the conflicts that arise, especially between extensions and plugins.
To summarize my own experience, the main challenges stem from the fast pace of updates and version conflicts between components and plugins. The complexity of Discourse and the occasionally confusing nature of its settings are, in my view, largely due to this rapid development cycle, as well as the fact that the software is open-source—a tremendous advantage, albeit with a few minor drawbacks.