Regex syntax can get nasty at times but after all these years it's still the best tool we've got for what it does.

well.. any ideas on how to make it better? I think we all want better regex syntax.

Also, I don't necessarily think it's the syntax, but simply the power / complexity that regexes have.

You can mitigate the horribleness by using x to enable multiline regexes and then include inline comments.