You're actually underestimating. Mars has an atmosphere, so spacecraft can use aerobraking to significantly reduce the delta-v required to get there. The moon has no such benefit — propulsion is required all the way to the surface.
The advantage of the moon, of course, is that it's not limited to transfer windows every two years. If there's an emergency or resupply is needed (or you just want to expand the mission), another lander can be sent at any time. (With some restrictions, like hitting your desired landing spot and making sure the sun wasn't in the Apollo crews' eyes at landing. But regardless, no longer than 28 days between windows.)
Look at the size of the Apollo.
Back on-topic, the discovery of water on the moon makes this more achievable there; otherwise Mars's resources might have actually meant less resources were required.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2nqgKL2JQU [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15093353
Look at the marvel that is the Skycrane. Not needed for the Moon.
No. It's thin enough you can't land with parachutes alone. It's still enough that Mars Global Surveyor used it to make up a 1,250 m/s delta-v deficit.
Is landing on Mars more complex than a thick atmospheric landing on parachutes or an exoatmospheric landing on propulsion only? Yes. But the atmosphere still saves you a lot of delta-v.
It took MGS 15 months (not counting delays) of aerobraking to do that. MGS only weighed 1000kg too. Maybe it could work for shipping large, pre-assembled, empty hab modules to Mars before people get there. (Low density, higher drag, no rush.) But not practical for actual human bodies or even resupply since the Hohmann transfer takes a mere 8.5 months. Adding an aerobraking maneuver could easily triple the transit time.
Surface probes do direct descent trajectories. There is no extended series of repeated braking passes. You do it in one go.
Also, you can use lithobraking.
[1] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1090; or on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2I8AoB1xgU
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2046/delta-v-chart...
Note that you could use Spectra/Kevlar or other common high strength materials with a taper ratio of only 4:1 with a lunar elevator. It might take "only" ~50 tons of spectra to hang the weight and allow lifts of a 1000kg or so... its much more doable than earth or mars.
In terms of delta-v, the budget for the moon is upwards of 50% that for Mars.
EDIT: The 50% figure is from memory, and upon further reflection is probably not quite right, so take it with a grain of salt. I just wanted to point out that distance is not the only relevant metric.