As much as I want as few layers between me and the hardware as possible, I would rather have many sane layers like much of the web than 1 insane layer like the win32 API. It doesn't follow good C, C++, std library or other conventions. Many functions have multiple poorly documented modes based on which structs you pass are empty or null pointers. It also just fails often for no reason I can understand, and the distinction between windows application and console is quasi magical and counterproductive.
Posix... Is a blessing by comparison. Every time I need to touch it it take me something like a single hour and I have a function that works reliably and just does what I need. Until we get to X11 and manipulating those windows. Then I just want to punch everything, but at least X11 works once the code is written, even though its inside out and backwards.
Now I just strongly prefer to use a good library to get at OS facilities. Things like SDL, boost or Intel Threading build blocks, etc. They are fast and generally tight enough I can open them and understand down to the hardware when I want.