Trying to do something in the middle that simplifies processes across groups will result in a veto from the process people. They are very well aware that their job is tied to making processes important and following those processes. They can't code, or even manage things well. But they can follow processes and advocate for how important all of their processes are within the org.
I imagine the lockin is all the custom code you wrote for the platform. The data is portable, even the schema can be reproduced in a fairly straightforward way. But all your bespoke automation code is not portable.
Salesforce was a breath of fresh air.
PS: I think they were also one of the few cloud-based (rather than on-premise) enterprise offerings in the earlier days which helped got them some customers.
[1] relatively any way.
Of course, once you start using it and wire in all of the integations to everything else in your company, it would be so difficult to transfer to another product so it is as sticky as **. Starts getting a lot more expensive too!