It certainly has a learning curve, and not everything is well designed. However, I think that's unfortunately to be expected of the whole domain; ERP tends to be one of the most complex types of software. The question is, which option makes this whole complexity less painful/overwhelming.

For the scope, features and breadth that Odoo offers, I think it's doing a decent job (albeit with lots of room for improvement).

Is there any alternative ERP system of a ~comparable scope that you could alternatively recommend? Python-based is ideal, but other languages are also fine.