By making our programming languages more complex, we make our programs easier.

By pushing the common complexity into a shared location, problems become easier to solve. Complex numbers really do factor out a lot of the complexity from many problems, at comparatively little cost.

When people say they don't "get" complex numbers, usually they mean they've seen them mentioned, but have never actually done anything with them.

It's like staying that you've read a book on lisp and don't get it. Using these things is an essential part of coming to understand them.