Has Drupal gotten easier or harder for you?

Core Drupal has only a few hard to learn features, imho. It's the powerful parts, that are flexible, and this complexity makes more parts to learn.

I'm dumbing down Drupal Admin menu for my customers by creating an Admin menu with just the links they need. As they learn more, I copy more Admin links to this custom menu. I call the menu "Staff Menu" and only display the block for those roles with Admin responsibilities.

The lack of module install from the web site is a difficulty, that even drush does not overcome.

But more on focus, once I learned how to learn Drupal, most new module learning curves are easy enough. Watching a few videos for the more complex modules is KEY.