You might be surprised to know that a large number of players are only interested in those "overly complicated and fiddly" boardgames (commonly known as "heavy"). The BGG ranking is massively dominated by those games [1]. There are also Youtube channels dedicated only to those heavy boardgames [2].

Personally I have as much fun learning a game with a 40-page rulebook as playing it. And I think most rulebooks are pretty good, I can't think of a single game I've learned where the rulebook was "awful".

[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame

[2] https://www.youtube.com/@Heavycardboard/streams