One problem with state machines is that they grow in complexity very quickly, and the tools that were given to most people in their CS curriculum don't help you

One problem with state machines is that they grow in complexity very quickly, and the tools that were given to most people in their CS curriculum don't help you manage this fast growth. This certainly isn't the case in all CS programs. In my university we had a notorious class where we had to use Rational Rose RT to create a state machine representing some distributed system (usually a game like pacman, or cops and robbers), then we actually added C++ code to those states and transitions to make the system actually run. There are of course always teams that decide to make a single state with a single transition holding all their code, but most people utilized nested states, history states, and all those "fun" things. The course however was usually a nightmare as the version of Rational Rose RT we were using was ancient and unstable. Also, since this was supposed to simulate a real project, the requirements changed half way through the semester causing lots of swearing, lots of all-nighters, and lots of delivery lasagna. You can still see "I HATE ROSE" and "ROSE SUCKS" etched into desks and walls in certain computer labs.