No tools are perfect and any tool can be improved upon by users' feedback.
However, the steps are something I prefer to keep even if Festool offered another version that employed the piston mechanism. Here is why.
Some domino users use spacer blocks (a Fine Woodworking issue covered that recently), but that is a slow method. The DJ has such built-in capability that MOST (99%?) owners don't know. Because it is not in the manual. In my shop, I build tables with aprons and offsets are a standard feature (with some exceptions). I do the offsets without spacer blocks.
To create an offset from an apron skirt to its leg, use the STEP to set the fence for the apron skirts at one depth (say, 22mm) and mortise everything. Then set the fence to 36mm for the legs USING again the step and mortise the rest. The result is a perfect 7mm offset.
You are not the only one who may not like the DJ as a user or owner. But you can't build large scale furniture pieces or doors with biscuits. Whatever the DJ may be deficient at, it is not designed to be a replacement for every other machine.
The DJ cuts 1/3 to 2/3 of my joinery time in my shop. I sold my biscuit joiner (and bench mortising machine) almost more than a decade ago and never look back. The only time I put away the DJ is when I do a hand tool joinery.
Anyone who has tons of Festool machines and hates them has a lot of options including taking classes at Festool Training Center to learn the untold secrets and techniques (eye opening for even the experienced Festool users), keeping on hating them, or selling them -- there was one guy who did that. He used to a Festool die-hard guy (tons of Festool videos by him and practically he had every Festool tool AND every accessory available in NA) and for reasons unknown to me, he became a non-Festool guy. Just like that.
Simon