I too dragged myself up the seemingly insurmountable learning curve that was gEDA about a decade ago and used it exclusively for many years. I poked around in KiCad every now and then and didn't think much of it either.

Since the changes that CERN made, KiCad is a completely new tool. It is now my tool of choice, and unless gEDA gets a similarly drastic revamp, I'm probably never going back.