Vulkan solves a different problem though, specifically one where performance is the primary consideration and simplicity is maintained to the extent that someon

Vulkan solves a different problem though, specifically one where performance is the primary consideration and simplicity is maintained to the extent that someone who writes engines gets all of the options they need. It's a bit hard to equate to assembly because the bulk of the complexity isn't so much "general purpose code" as "data processing pipeline." Additionally, graphics still has a very real "out of memory problem" that you can safely ignore for the most part in modern OSes and normal programming. The moment you hit "virtual graphics memory" your framerate tanks. If you're looking for sane defaults, the answer is to use things like Unity, Unreal, etc. You can actually get quite far with their defaults and very little code. That's why I usually tell people to skip OpenGL, DirectX, or Vulkan and just go use an engine. 3d also just has an inherent complexity that at every stage you're dealing with the limitations of processing 3d data using 2d buffers. That's why any fancy effect requires you to manipulate primitives (buffers and shades).