But it's still painful doing many things in a fluid / connected way, and generally it just doesn't scale for assets.
E.g. I tried to import the .obj (because the FBX support is pretty crap and there's no .abc support) of a fairly small model I had of a voxellated (shape made out of cubes) shape, which consisted of around 300,000 primitives (all cubes), and blender took over 6 hours to import it. Maya, Houdini (and 3D apps I've written) opened it in seconds.
With so much functionality, where to find the things you are looking for can be a bit difficult. I think doing as you did and rebuilding your workflow around the tool is probably the best way to get productive.
I've yet to see a 3D program where it's easy (except, maybe Google Sketchup). They are complicated beasts, so new users should expect a learning curve. In my experience, though, Blender gets easier once you master the basics (while most other packages let you do a "hello world" type project easily, but mire you down with their "friendly" UI for more advanced stuff).
Another important thing that sets Blender apart WRT learning curve, is the abundance of good tutorials and help (it's even got its own stack exchange site[1] - incredibly helpful!).