Yes, pretty much everything is like that: explained in terms of their web services wrapper, not the actual messages sent on the wire. And if you want to log the SOAP messages going back & forth, you have to implement a weird listener class to get them. Microsoft came late to TCP/IP and the web because of their contempt for open, text-based network protocols, and you can still sense it in their products. For instance the C# web client is able to upload mime-encoded files, but the form data name must be `file`. It can't be `photo`. Let alone `photo1` in the same request as `photo2` or a bunch of photos named `user[photos][]`. And you should try reading the Stack Overflow answers for making Powershell print a raw HTTP conversation the way `curl -v` can.

On the other hand, if you do understand the underlying network protocols and can read them (and find ways to view what is happening), it is like a super power.