Man, I'm not from the Java world, but these days I had to deal with it for a project and had to mess with ant builds, which I have never dealt with before. I was totally baffled. I just do not understand why would anyone subject themselfs to such levels of pain.

I take it you haven't seen EJB2.

Let's just say that it was a more brutal age, and we were more accustomed to such horrors. :)

It really depends on the specific person. I started programming in 2006 at 21yo and I don't feel like I missed anything at all. Spent a lot of time reading and researching things anyway. Higher abstractions doesn't necessarily mean lower complexity.