LVM was a decent idea at the time, which was the early 1980s. But that locked in many architectural decisions that make it incredibly painful to use in practise

LVM was a decent idea at the time, which was the early 1980s. But that locked in many architectural decisions that make it incredibly painful to use in practise, and its devs follow the "it was hard to write, so it should be hard to use" mentality, which make it even more painful. Self-corrupting snapshots are considered a skill issue on the user's part, e.g., while ZFS simply doesn't allow users to shoot themselves in the foot like that. (And you rarely even need block-level snapshots in the first place!) Encryption, data integrity, redundancy, are all out scope for LVM, so now you need a RAID layer and a verification layer and an encryption layer and if you stack them wrong, everything breaks. Skill issue! And not LVM's problem in the first place. ZFS doesn't make you jump through hoops to manually calculate sector offsets to figure out how you can make an SSD cache that doesn't blow up in your face either. So, no, LVM isn't underrated. It's a painful relic of a bygone age andif anything, overrated.