Yes, the cigs WERE easier. I was telling my husband the other day that our vaping journey (which he thinks takes up WAY too much time) is similar to if a person was going to start smoking, but had to learn how to grow the tobacco, harvest it and dry it and shred it and cure it, then make the paper from wood pulp and cut it to size, then blend the tobaccos (oh, yeah, you'd have to grow more than one TYPE of tobacco, to suit your individual taste) and finally, wrap it all up in your homemade paper and smoke it. It could get pretty time consuming, right?
The "easy" equivalent in vaping would be buying cigalikes in quantity. That would be easy. One dies, you toss it and grab the next one. But verrrry expensive, and not very fulfilling. There's a short way and a long way with both smoking and vaping, but I'm finding most of the FUN of vaping is finding all the neat alternatives, or new flavors, or different types of coils... there are a million different ways to do it.
If you're like me (and most people, I think), you'll be happy with the iStick for a good long time as far as serviceability goes. Of course, the part that never ends is wanting the newest "shiny" that comes out.

You might not NEED it, but you'll WANT it.
~Lannie