I feel like it's missing my point. Using a chainsaw is harder than using a manual saw, but if you need to cut many trees it's a lot more efficient to first learn how to use the chainsaw.

Now if you take the chainsaw without spending a second thinking about learning to use it, and start using it like a manual saw... no doubt you will find it worse, but that's the wrong way to approach a chainsaw.

And I am not saying that async is "strictly better" than all the alternatives (in many situations the chainsaw is inferior to alternatives). I am saying that it is a tool. In some situations, I find it easier to express what I want with async. In others, I find alternatives better. At the end of the day, I am the professional choosing which tool I use for the job.