I agree with a lot of your points, in particular that it's a difficult system to get a handle on. I'm beginning to understand it after being on it for a month but I've had to watch a ton of videos and read a lot of posts over and over and probably many people don't have the time that I've had to study. It needs to be simplified, yet I fear it will get even more complicated before it gets simpler.
And bots, I'm thankful for them because they are contributing the majority of my income so far, but I'd gladly sacrifice the bot money in exchange for real readers!