There are a class of engineers who have very little Linux experience, but use AWS extensively. For them, "Setting up a server" is always going to be more complex and frustrating than using the platform that they are familiar with, even when the AWS setup they come up with to replace a single server is way more complex to an "outsider".

Personally, I don't think there is an excuse to not learn Linux. It's usually the right tool for the job, and you can use tooling like ansible and AWS instances to get your stack cloud based, stateless, automated, yada yada buzzword . But I can't really blame people for using the tools they are comfortable with.