yeah man, I remember reading stuff like that before I was sold on it and eventually it got to me (probably after another borked Arch install) and I was like "fuck it, I am diving into this mess come hell or high water" and...

... Yep. It's exactly as s/he said it. Once you grok it, you literally want it on EVERY COMPUTER YOU OWN.

IMHO it still needs to get more user-friendly, or at least have another layer that is more user-friendly, as well as have ramp-up materials that are consolidated and good, before it will be more widely adopted