For anyone looking to understand Roam, I would suggest searching "roam cult" or "#roamcult" on Twitter.

I'm not one of them — but there is a hardcode, devoted fan base that are convinced it's the best thing since sliced bread. Whenever that occurs, it's worth trying to understand why.

I think the bad homepage is (somewhat) intentional: they only want people who are willing to look past the home screen and actually give it a try... and (I believe) they want to avoid the audience who is trying it just because of a flashy landing page.