You could say this about a lot of automation tools. A properly-functioning *arr stack is nothing more than an automation tool. Punch a movie/tv show into Overseerr, the *arrs work in the background with your downloader client (torrent or Usenet), and some time later - depending on your internet bandwidth - it appears in Plex/Jellyfin.

The convenience of the end result is worth the work.

I kinda agree. IIRC, they were originally built for downloading from newsgroups, which does need a lot of automation. Personally, I do find Sonarr useful, so I don't have to manually keep track of when new episodes come out. Before Sonarr, I used to use a tool that was configured with YAML or something, forgot what it was. I do run an *arr stack now because I have a multi-member household, and they don't want to go searching for stuff on trackers, so they just use Overseerr.