-As an eng I was frustrated by it because I felt it got in the way of "real work" (I don't know if this was right or wrong - it just felt frustrating at the time).
-As a manager, I was frustrated by it because my engineers were constantly disappearing for customer support rotations.
But then I watched one of my friends literally eliminate 400+ hours a month of customer support time (as well as the less measurable corresponding customer frustration) by writing a small tool in an hour only because he had that first person experience with the issue.
I had no prior experience with Salesforce when I first requested access. I'm no Salesforce Architect, but I have a great grasp on the internals of it now all because my boss had a little faith in me.