Yeah, especially code like that:

artifactory { publish { repository { repoKey = version.endsWith('-SNAPSHOT') ? 'libs-snapshot-local' : 'libs-release-local' } } }

In Gradle, this is immediately understandable to everybody. You can't do this in Maven without plugin support or some very protracted constructs.

Sprinkling those small bits makes the Gradle useful. We are not talking about making a beast of a build system, just provide you with an ability to solve your problems.

You may not want or like to learn another tool and that's fine. But don't think that just because you don't see the reason it means its not useful for other people.