I think it is related to but not the same as the OP but to me, something that you don't think of much is that this was invented by Google for Google-scale issues.

What does this mean?

Lots of things that would be relatively easy for Google make it harder for much smaller companies. Logging? Google can build a log aggregator. Hardware? Google have 100s of 1000s of servers. Documentation? Originally, certain knowledge could be kept in small teams who worked on it, the documentation then had to be generated after-the-fact, which is perhaps why the docs are quite factual and not so good at introducing some of the concepts. You want GUI tools for setting up e.g. rbac and certs? Great but Google don't because they have people who can write the relevant automation scripts in their sleep so don't need what us mere mortals might prefer when new to it.

I do like it though and use it for some of our systems.