yes there are some lower level functions, which can be simplified if you make your higher level functions, but don't forget, for those few additional lines you get fast GPU bone animation! moreover, it works fast in DX10+ deferred rendering mode, easy to set a nice environment, sky, fog, water (lake and river), PSSM shadows (6 split max), and other Shader Model 3.0 effects, without the need to dig into shader coding at all.

a couple of things are easier in Esenthel than in 3DGS, like: object shader assignments done in the model editor by drag and drop, model LOD, navmesh pathfinding by one command, making really huge worlds cosisting of several terrains having LOD, and streamed in-out based on actual camera position, portals to change level. there are RPG or shooter ready chracter, camera, weapon, and item handling commands. the very missing thing is instancing or mesh merging (it is postponed a bit because of the development of the new editor), but there is a separate grass class for billboard grass sprites, what you can place in the world editor or by code, but you can set its clipping distance to fine tune performance.

in 3DGS it is faster to develop indoor block environment for fast prototyping, which sometimes very practical, and also used in Unreal Editor. the 3DGS documentation is also better, more easy to start with, and lite-c is really a lightweight language, I really like it.