Comparing with Arch and saying it is easier - well, gee, sure - not a particularly high bar to clear! The same about installing the desktop using a package manager.
If you have to actually do any of that, you have lost already, at least as far as a productive desktop is concerned. My point is not that it is hard to do but that you shouldn't have to do it in the first place!
Desktop OS should come with a working desktop out of the box - many desktop Linux distros actually give you a choice during the install and preconfigure one of the major ones for you.
BSDs make excellent servers and there this simplicity and Unix-like approach to running things are a large benefit. Modern Linux distros tend to be way too complex and "black-box" like in this regard. However, having to go through all this to run a desktop is an unnecessary masochism for people who have way too much time on their hands, IMO.
You must be that mythical Hacker News commenter who's proud of using default settings everywhere and not customizing anything :D
Anyway, setting up any BSD, or Arch, or even Gentoo doesn't really take "way too much time", come on.
Our receptionist installed it herself on both her work and home computers in 1997. Next, next, next, done.
Setting up FreeBSD is easier than, say, Arch Linux. The OS install is a menu based "next, next, next" process like in Debian. Installing a desktop environment… honestly I can't imagine how it CAN be difficult. `pacman -S xfce`, `pkg install xfce`, same thing everywhere.