"Programming can and should be much, much more user friendly than it is now."

While there's no doubt there are some libraries/tools/systems which are poorly designed, perceived complexity may often be due to the requirement to support a wide variety of new and legacy systems or to support layers of the tech stack that many people are not even aware of.

"We've just chosen to keep things like this because we think it makes us clever."

If I could make my job any simpler I would jump at the opportunity. Personally I often marvel at how relatively quick and easy it is to quickly develop useful programs.

Perhaps if you try implementing some of these more simple tools the reasons for the underlying complexity will reveal themselves.