As someone who also uses and administers JIRA i'll have to respectfully disagree with that disagreement ;)

The backend application may very well be engineer-focused, but that speaks more to its flexibility than anything, IMO - as far as user experience, it's as empowering and minimalistic as you make it.

One of the few pieces of software I truly love.

Fortunately, engineers are a significant target market.

In the real world, simplistic ticketing systems fail to meet enterprise needs, which are complex and peculiar, arising from weird contract clauses, irrational political outcomes, legacy processes etc etc. JIRA's multi-layered customisability is a huge boon in these environments.

Also, people aren't actually stupid. Yes, even non-engineers can use a complex piece of computer software! A little training goes a long way. Who knew?!

This is not meant to sound challenging, I have used and, both loved and loathed, some JIRA setups. A lot of it might be implementation.

But as for the question, again not challenging, just curious:

What do you suggest as empowering, out-of-the-way, issue tracking software?

I've really liked fogbugz.

I second that. I sometimes wonder why FogBugz+Kiln combination has not 'caught on' as much as other offerings like github, atlassian products, etc.

My only (but major) gripe I have with FogBugz is that it is stupidly hard to insert inline images in cases (compared to how easy it is in a github issue)..and while at it, the entire editor could use a makeover for ease of use/markdown capability

I think it comes down to pricing for a lot of people. $300 a year per user basically and you don't own anything at the end of that term. $7200 a year for 25-150 doesn't seem so bad once you get up to 100+ users. $300 a year might not be bad for a developer who is in it every day, or a PM who keeps track of these things every day, but for that person who gets called in to fix one thing it can be expensive.

The price is steep for the most price sensitive users who probably already have experience in another tracking system. It's hard to get that user to try it the first time. Even the free version is very limited compared to other trials, allowing a total of 2 users, which probably isn't representative of the number of people involved when issue tracking is brought up.

JIRA has got an extremely "nervous" interface where clicking around in innocuous places (like blocks of text) causes strange things to happen, editing modes to be entered, and things to move around unexpectedly. So in this sense it "gets out of the way" nicely.