I understand for what you saying, but when I started to use Darktable (>=2.4.x and 3.x to be exact), giving an hour of poking allowed me to understand most of its basic operation. So latest iterations of Darktable is not obscure like earlier versions of Blender. It's much more discoverable.
> dehazing is super-easy and very effective in LR
Darktable has a dehaze filter and it works very well, but didn't compare with LR TBH.
> pano stitching
Didn't need it yet, so no comments here.
> auto retouching;
Darktable auto settings for some tools, but I didn't dig deeper since I don't use auto stuff much, TBH.
> I remember LR making it very easy to straighten photos by drawing a line with a tool.
It's exactly the same in Darktable. Plus it has a very solid perspective detection and correction tool.
I'm not a photo pro. Just an enthusiast if you're eager to put a level. I explored Darktable exactly the way you've told. Just open an image, open a category and play with sliders, that's all.
> dehazing is super-easy and very effective in LR
Darktable has a dehaze filter and it works very well, but didn't compare with LR TBH.
> pano stitching
Didn't need it yet, so no comments here.
> auto retouching;
Darktable auto settings for some tools, but I didn't dig deeper since I don't use auto stuff much, TBH.
> I remember LR making it very easy to straighten photos by drawing a line with a tool.
It's exactly the same in Darktable. Plus it has a very solid perspective detection and correction tool.
I'm not a photo pro. Just an enthusiast if you're eager to put a level. I explored Darktable exactly the way you've told. Just open an image, open a category and play with sliders, that's all.