You arent wrong, there's a different mindset with a lot of homeassistant. It feels like there isnt an understanding of something like MQTT - I want automations

You arent wrong, there's a different mindset with a lot of homeassistant. It feels like there isnt an understanding of something like MQTT - I want automations that listen to events, which include data in the payload. "Subscribe to a topic" and "filter relevant happenings" seems conceptually so easy. Building a UI to do this, harder. But adding a (bad) widget system of the actions? Hmm. Its not IFTTT, it should not try to be. Provide visualisation tools to manage what listens and what broadcasts. Have black boxes of logic, just mandate they must respond in a particular way. Leave the rest to programming. And if non devs are frustrated: help turn them into devs