Kicads feature set it built upon developer interest, Less so the community forums, But like any dev team, making there job easy makes your wishlist more likely to be completed.
E.g. I regularly abuse there 3d export to test fit multiple boards in there 3D veiwer, however it was not adding a tag on export to allow this to work reliably, I raised a bug, made clear what would need to be changed, and it was merged in to the dev version 1 week later.
As to your specific gripes, I feel its lack of familiarity with some of there UI choices, The majority of the UI overhauls are talked about as being V6, whereas the current release candidates for V5 are aimed at improving the library system and creation tools. and making integration with suppliers for atomic libraries easier.
"It's a shame because it has so much potential."
On that note, What exactly would you like to see it expand into, what features do you feel it lacks?
For pads you can change shape, size and thermal / non thermal settings, by selecting the copper layer then right clicking over the pad you want to change. There are even plugins built to help make the really specific stuff e.g. antennas,
https://forum.kicad.info/t/kicad-stepup-the-sketcher-for-footprint-generation/9582Now there are limitations, some like the segments per circluar zone are a pain, So as i go, I keep poking the relevent bug reports / feature requests, and eventually the squeaky wheel will get the grease.