Looking at the examples given, it seems like Darktable becomes more and more unusable due to a lack of good defaults and easy configurability. I agree with the author that opinion and good defaults help to keep software simple. Yet, I also value having a way to opt out of this and customize it. Take Visual Studio, for example: There are multiple sets of decent keyboard shortcuts and a sensible default layout, plus a menu option to restore it. As a user, you're still free to create your own task-specific layouts.
When I worked at a big music software company, I also valued the strong opinions that kept the UI simple. Because the software was already so packed with functionality that it would overwhelm users easily if it would be exposed too openly.