I think it's not that bad. There is a local commit graph and there are one or more remote commit graphs. The main operations with git are to manipulate one's commit graphs and, when the time comes, reconcile the local graph with the remote one.

Once users figured out what they want to do with the graphs, they then need to figure out how to achieve that with git's cli. And I feel that is where many of the complaints about git's complexities comes from.

IMHO the best way to use git is through a GUI so that one only needs to figure out what they want to do with the commit graphs, leaving the second part of the puzzle to the GUI.