They have their place. I started out with Doom and it definitely helped to streamline the beginner phase where vanilla would have felt overwhelming. But, as with you, I soon became frustrated when I wanted to move beyond its default configuration.

I've since switched to Vanilla and I've been using ChatGPT to gradually explain and help me integrate the Doom features that I like, so that I end up with a similar base that I actually understand and which I can deviate from where I want to.