What kind of user are you?
"Well, I want a stable and efficient product..."
Sure, and we agree that being stable is even more important than being "brilliant", "over-rich" in features.
But if you had to choose between "fast and canned" and "sophisticated and elaborate", what would you prefer?
This choice involves critical consequences.
The second type of user will certainly accept a steeper learning curve.
He will feel willing to read the full documentation.
He will enjoy flexibility much more than ready-made solutions.
He will love modifying the product (add and change record types, fields, term lists..., not to mention citation styles).
The first type of user will appreciate the opposite.
Needless to say we do not have just two types of users: try to locate yourself in the range.
The more you modify or customize the delivered product, as far as document types and their fields are concerned, the more you tend to isolate yourself from the context. These software products are made and shipped with default structures: record type definitions, fields, output styles and import filters which all tend to work together harmoniously.
For example, if I add, modify or suppress a field in a workform (e.g.: in "book chapter" I do not expect to find "Place of publication" but I want "ISBN"), I cannot expect the system to know all that and adjust the filter while importing from an external bibliographic database; rather I will have to intervene and adapt the filter. Ditto for output styles: e.g. Chicago or Vancouver will first react according to the default database structure as designed by the software developer and should be adapted to comply with my modifications.
So normally a product that is fairly stiff, or less customizable than others, is more easy to be used.
If you do not need to modify the shipped database structure you have a much quieter life, as styles and filters will work relying on the document types and fields configuration designed by the developer.
But the 'active' user is also likely to exhibit the skill and the stamina required to reach the shore (other users, standard output formats ...) from which he is temporarily distant.
The trend of the market and of the leading products is to offer simpler, more limited, ready-made products. Publishers believe that the large majority of users prefers a large quantity of canned solutions rather than the tool to craft its own solution (this is especially the case with import filters and output styles).