Most HR software is truly horrendous to use. It's often marred by the fact that the buyer is HR/Finance and the actual users are Hiring Managers and Employees. The former cares about cost/setup time/administration and the latter cares about actually using a good product.
I agree with your assessment about why it's bad, but focusing on end users may be "much better" in terms of creating a great product experience but if that doesn't mesh with how procurement actually happens that can be a pretty huge barrier to actually getting customers.