I've had the opposite experience, every single one works great first try but with most operating systems releasing at least twice per year these days. As such I haven't found the need to have a big list of options that I'll install more than once or twice anyways. That combined with UEFI there isn't much process to make USBs bootable.

Persistence always seemed cool on these types of tools but similarly I've never needed a persistent USB I'll boot from often enough to make the persistence more of a benefit than a burden.