I think it was a PITA to learn, but it's also very necessary to interoperate with the existing JS ecosystem. Many libraries have a default export (often, a function) and then a number of sub-exports that are assigned as fields of that. Without the distinction you mention, there'd be no way to specify whether you want to import 'bar' and bind it to Foo, or whether you want to import the Foo member of bar.

Given an extra few days to learn the semantics of import vs. losing access to the millions of npm packages out there, I'd rather spend the extra few days.