Shaders are simpler than any other kind of game scripting, IMHO. It's a different way of thinking, sure, but a small game will be hundreds if not thousands of lines of code. A small shader could be less than 10.

I agree that the built-in collision system is very limited in terms of usefulness. KarBOOM doesn't use any of the c_ functions at all. In future games of mine that require more complex character interaction with the environment, I see myself using c_trace, but doing all the collision stuff myself.

Jibb