Status of form/profile usability
More usable forms/profiles is a major goal of CiviCRM 5.0.  

Creating a form creator that's flexible enough to meet the varied needs of many constituencies is a lot of work.  Unfortunately, while CiviCRM is free to use, it's not free to write.  Most of the folks who complain aren't willing to fund (or do) the work.  Using Webform is certainly a crutch, but in a world without unlimited developer resources, you can understand why someone wrote the CiviCRM-Webform integration rather than try to do it all from scratch.

I have no way of knowing which camp you fall into - but for everyone with this same question who hasn't contributed, please consider the many ways in which you can help make more usable forms/profiles a reality.