They are certainly useful machines, I was skeptical at first but I finally got one and found many uses for it. Some are more reliable than others, but you still have to think of them as tools like you find in a workshop, or a sewing machine, and that need some skill and involvement to operate. They are also best used as such. The biggest value in 3D printers is to make things that don't exist to fit your specific needs, they are no replacement for mass production, in the same way people usually don't use an office printer to print a book they can find at a local bookstore, and this is will never be one click easy, just as writing a book is not easy.
I guess that some "industrial"-grade printers like Ultimaker should be better in that regard, but I'm not sure about that.
Not every 2D printer is good either. I have Epson printer which refused to print stuff after few months of downtime. I managed to recover it by doing some "cleaning nozzle" procedure, but I don't think it was guaranteed to work. Though it was my failure because I was hooked on this promise "buy ink not proprietary cartridge with chip". I'd better buy ordinary HP laser jet with proprietary cartridge instead, those inkjet printers are not well suited for my use-case (printing few pages once a year).
You know, a pretty low bar for a product to be considered functional.
The machine was flawless from day one even in the hands of a complete novice like me. The upgrade was also flawless.
This times I've had bad prints? I changed filaments without understanding how it behaves. I printed things without understanding how to prepare the print, and it fell over. Attempting to print flexibles.
These issues may or may not plague you depending on your use case. I mostly print mechanical parts that I design myself. And I use limited types of filaments for prototyping. So can I get 100 out of 100 successful prints? Yes, that's quite achievable.
3D printers are the same. it's a mechanical thing which involves heat and lubrication and motors. It's never going to be "without issue".
3D Printers are a lot better than they used to be though - if you buy a good one it will be immediately useful and require minimal maintenance. Those are the things Prusa is good at.