[MaxBarraclough]

> now everyone has to deal with such complexity directly, or make use of a middleware engine instead

You don't really have to though, you can still use the higher-level older graphics APIs. It wouldn't have made much sense for Vulkan to include a high-level graphics API as well, as those APIs already exist and have mature ecosystems.

Similarly, in Windows land, you aren't forced to use D3D12, you can still use D3D11 or even D3D9.

[pjmlp]

Kind of, many developers feel they are using legacy deprecated APIs, especially given how they are referred to in some circles.

Naturally that leads to some uncomfort.