Look, no illusions or exaggerations here; APT is an imperfect tool and it's intricate, complex and unwieldy sometimes. But please consider the status quo ante. I've run Minix-286, OpenBSD, NetBSD, SunOS, HP/UX, and Linux, and in the years between 1990-2003, there were zero package managers in use.

Like literally APT did not exist, no predecessor existed, there was absolutely no package management for those systems. Or if there was, it was by script or some bespoke framework that came with the app you downloaded. There was 100% no system-wide management of what was installed on my computers.

I've been in states of recompiling the kernel from source. I've run those "./configure" scripts that came with GNU. I've fiddled with custom kernel configuration files and Tripwire databases that tried to keep track of everything there. I've applied patches issued by Sun Microsystems.

Absolutely none of that above jumble can hold a candle to the way we use APT today. I'm sorry you suffered nightmares and needed 3rd-party stuff. But it was a dream come true to type out a one-liner and have the system upgrade itself, accounting for all dependencies, replacing all necessary files, being aware of all config updates, leaving audit trails and versioned files. Simply like falling off a log at this point.

Who would ever go back? What can be simpler? It was simply the degrading of this unified control and the loss of a singular point of management that has begun to dismay us.