[grayter1]

I think the OP's assessment has some merit. I've been a Reaper user since version 3, and an even longer Logic user - (v3) since 1998. It's been a long strange trip learning Reaper for me, filled with frustrations and stops and starts.

If one has spent any length of time on another DAW, Reaper's conventions can be challenging. To me everything, and I do mean everything, seemed 'backwards' when I started using it. It can take a while to undo one's thinking and re-wrap your head around the "Reaper Way".

Even after all the years I've invested in Reaper, I still, on occasion, find myself frustrated - not by the lack of a missing feature. It's more that other DAW's present a straight forward, or standard (for lack of a better word) way of implementing a particular feature.

Case in point - I asked a question on one of the Reaper Facebook pages recently. I wanted to know if I could highlight several tracks and instantiate a single effect (say an EQ) across all of the selected tracks. This is standard fare in Pro Tools, Studio One and Logic - highlight the tracks, hold a modifier and boom - you've got Fabfilter Pro-Q2 on 8 tracks. No muss. No fuss. Seems standard, right?

Well, not in Reaper. The thread grew with multiple ways to accomplish the task, but many suggestions involved doing some leg work ahead of time, like setting up effects chains and using Cycle Actions. Someone suggested using ReaConsole (only if you spelled the plugin name correctly), while another suggested writing a script.

That, in essence, IS one of the OP's points. Sure, one CAN program Reaper to do what one wants - and many Reaper users get off on that - but something that other DAW's handle so well (and elegantly), like selecting something, holding a modifier and making something happen is what is missing in Reaper. And if I'm not mistaken, the modifier for multiple track plugin instantiation is the same in all the DAW's mentioned, so it's somewhat of a standard across those programs. [EDIT - Pro Tools is a 2 key modifier]

A new user might think that's all you have to do as well in Reaper, but sadly, it took a thread of multiple responses - and no clear consensus on how to do it - just varied suggestions. That's why some find Reaper difficult. I'm a long time user, and while I get on with it, I just wish that it could fall in line with the rest of the DAW world occasionally. Why do I need a script for something other DAW's do out of the box? More to the point, why do I need a script for something that is handled almost universally in the same manner across several DAW's out of the box?

tg