The cognates are difficult, true - there are quite a few old Indo-European words if you know where to look (kulta - gold, kuningas - king, ranta from Swedish strand, i.e. shore). That said, once you've built up a core vocabulary, it's quite easy to learn derived words. For example, kirja, kirjasto, kirjoittaa, kirje - book, library, write, letter. By comparison, you can see how much different all the equivalent English words are due to its mixed Germanic and French/Latin vocabulary, and how much a challenge that makes for non-native learners.
Cool examples! I can definitely see how Finnish would be easier to learn than English, assuming a lack of familiarity with related languages.
Greek is also very synthetic, so a little basic vocabulary goes a long way. I like the word for "waterproofing", literally "against-through-rain-making" (αδιαβροχοποίηση, a-dia-brocho-poiesi)
