A camera that fights you is not making you a better photographer

I hear this idea sometimes that clunky, complicated gear is somehow a rite of passage. That wrestling with buried menus and cryptic settings is part of earning your creative stripes. I disagree.

The best moments I have caught in narrow alleys or at weekend flea markets happened because the tool got out of the way. A weathered doorframe in the right light does not wait for you to dig through three submenus. The texture is there for a second, maybe two, and then the sun shifts or someone walks through. If your camera punishes you for not memorizing its logic, that is not creative freedom. That is a design failure dressed up as professionalism.

I am not saying everything should be dumbed down. I want full manual control when I need it. But power and intuition should not be opposites. A flea market vendor who makes you solve a puzzle before you can hold the object is not protecting the craft, they are just disorganized.

Curious whether others feel the friction of complex gear has ever genuinely served their work, or if we just learned to tolerate it and called that growth.