Yep, agreed.

If you can admin your own Jira instance and keep the fields and plugins to exactly what you need, it's pretty nice. I keep going back to it for the customizable workflows and fine-grained access control.

Unfortunately, every corporate Jira instance I've ever worked with has been overrun with every possible field possible, an unnecessary and constantly shifting mishmash of plugins and horribly slow access. You're paying the price for all of that cruft that you don't need and which can't be removed because "maybe someone wants it."