Exactly, I think I could have stated it better. Using k8s is strictly more complex from the perspective of the operator, and the mountain I'm referring to isn't actually from k8s itself but from all the 3rd party stuff you have to layer on to actually make it useful-- things like cluster-autoscaler, vpa, kube-prometheus, aws-load-balancer-controller, misc. operators, that fall on my side of the wall when it comes to fixing it when it's broken.

I can understand that it doesn't come off that way but I actually like k8s and the surrounding ecosystem. But deploying k8s makes your infrastructure as complicated as k8s itself, which can be a massive win because it works in both directions.