Can you "work around" all that? Sure, it's technically possible (well actually it's not possible to solve all of the above, but most of it). Just like it's also possible to take a mini-van and convert it into a hot rod, so it can pick up groceries after it's entered in a drag race. It will just cost you a lot of extra time and money, and do both jobs poorly.
It's NIH syndrome plain and simple. Hipster nerds who want to invent something for fun, rather than using something off the shelf. People decrying "complexity", who then poorly implement complexity themselves, in the form of functionality shoved into a system not built for it. Software architecture by HN meme.
You could store that in a text file, there aren't really any serious requirements.