I guess it just seems like there’s a lot more state than with file systems I’m used to dealing with. In fact, since journaling became normal, most just have two states (from the user’s perspective) whether powered on or off, mounted or unmounted, whatever—broken, or OK.

ZFS has... a lot more. It’s just very different and the way these states fit together, and worrying about how to operate on them safely, makes me more nervous, in many ways, than less-safe file systems do. I’m sure that will pass, but it’s still not fun.