Yet still limited compared to even not-very-deep NNs. If the user wants to fit a parabola with a linear regression, he pretty much has to manually add a quadratic term himself.
I think they’re widely used primarily because they’re widely taught in school.
It’s not good, but it’s not that uncommon.
Half the companies out there are below average (ok, below the median), and kinda suck.
IMHO The key line in your long wall of text was:
so cool… you had a good experience, but have now outgrown the role so it’s reasonable to look for better.