Not really you. The difficulty was naturally higher, for a wide array of reasons, most of which get ignored. Inputs were poorer, the management of difficulty curves was basically lolrandom, people didn't know how to really tutorialize yet, etc etc.

Tetris doesn't really suffer from any of these. Either they got lucky or designed it very smartly. Prob both. It's a masterpiece. Most retro games aren't, even our favorites.