Every major update has broken something or fundamentally changed my workflow to such a degree that I no longer feel I understand the program. I currently use it in a semi-automated setup and I'll likely have my package manager ignore its upgrades in the future barring total breakage of the package. Note: I'm not saying the program is bad, it's just not something I'm interested in constantly tweaking/relearning if a future update is just going to break it.

I just learned about Ansel, which is a fork by someone who did a ton of work for DT but was ultimately too opinionated and got the boot. Apparently it's way more streamlined and easier to work with. YMMV.

I've also heard about vkdt, which is very early, but still something to look at.

Personally i'm okay with the UI, but the default rendering is often so bad that I have to "fix" every single image. To me it's either Raw therapee or just reboot into Windows ..