Can’t really blame them for not producing the slick configuration GUI for every option. But it is annoying that they always go for the slick configuration GUI, as if they were a for profit company with a bunch of full time devs. Meanwhile every other open source program, recognizing that it has limited developer time (and interest in boring grunt work), just sets up easier text-centric config first…
The text-centric config for GNOME is dconf/gsettings. But what people like to complain about is graphical configuration, which adds enough maintenance burden that it's only worth doing if it's going to be friendly enough for most novice users.