Consistency of configuration is a big thing — I can configure my Spark, internal framework, and application logs in the same file, for example. That’s actually one thing I liked about Java, how easy configuring logging via Log4j was and how widely adopted it was by most dependencies.

In terms of features, one that comes to mind log rotation.

I dunno, I suppose all together I’d answer your third paragraph to the affirmative — I’m more productive and the libraries improve significantly within crucibles like this.