The "better" is, too. Easy can be boring, stale, artificial, uninteresting, without surprise or depth. Rules are part of the fun of a game.
The thing, as always, is to have complex rules where you want them, where it's fun, and to have easy, smooth rules where you don't want complexity, just results.
Because all design is local, each table (and possibly each player at each table, on different nights) has different desires for these things.
And lo, the designers promised modularity, and it there was much rejoicing.