dozens of hours modding per hour played gang

The last serious modding I did was in C&C Generals, where it was a small enough game that one person could plausibly make a total conversion. That was a long time ago though, nowadays I just download other people's mods. It doesn't help that modern game studios rely on DLC and thus are incentivised to make modding less accessible generally (and anything with higher graphical fidelity requires more work/experience on the part of a 3D artist).

That said, I do try to give games I play a fair shake on its own terms before complaining