Oh, no I am self-aware of how that probably comes across haha. I know it's a really complex field but I guess the presumption is that these things would work out of the box because they are so core to the experience of the engine. I essentially changed not because I thought it was easy but because after digging into the issue I realised how complex the domain is, and I couldn't afford to be bogged down with it when another engine does seem to get it right out of the box for my use case.

I guess my categorising them as no brainers is just that the use case seems so obvious that it not working is surprising. It was just a door casting a shadow onto a floor plane, I may have done something wrong but, that it was even slightly problematic was a red flag to me.