@ernie WordPress always seems like a fever dream to me—nearly all the publications I wrote for transitioned to it. I've tried to set it up before (and succeeded). But it's the dog's lunch of crap in a basket—and that's after I had to work with Expression Engine for a few years.
@glennf a big part of the reason is that a lot of the functionality that one expects of a traditional CMS hasn't traditionally been built in.
Hence the need for ACF.