I agree that the k8s ecosystem isn't quite as complex as it seems at first, but specifically running stateful apps does come pretty close to earning the bad reputation.

(Disclaimer: I've tried and failed several times to get pgsql up and running in k8s with and without operators, so that either makes me unqualified to discuss this, or perfectly qualified to discuss this)

If the operator were simple enough to be installed/uninstalled via a helm chart that Just Worked, I'd feel better about the complexity. But running a complicated, non-deterministic ansible playbook scares me. The other options (installing a pgo installer, or installing an installer to your cluster) are no better.

Also, configuring the operator is more complicated than it should be. Devs and sysadmins alike are used to `brew install postgresql-server` or `apt install postgresql-server` working just fine for 99% of use cases. I'll grant that it's not apples-to-apples since HA pgsql has never been easy, but if the sales pitch is that any superpower-less k8s admin can now run postgres, I think the manual should be shorter.