It was. When I got my first Mac in 2008, it was very straightforward. When Apple started to tighten OSX security they stumbled a little IIRC (I cannot find the old warnings and notes on the page). Also, around the same time, OSX installer changed, and OS upgrades started to take longer since TeX installation had so many files.

When they were working on these problems, I was in the middle of my Ph.D., and I needed a stable TeX installation, fast. I installed a Linux VM, all my woes went away, and that method just stuck.

I just checked the MacTeX page now, and it looks like they solved the problems I mentioned above, but currently I'm too lazy and need that TeX installation keep working, so I'll not retry it now.