So (again, and sorry to harp on this): an image which you (or someone else) considers challenging in Darktable 3.8 for the purposes of this discussion would really help to focus the conversation.
Without concrete examples, is it very hard to say if something is inherently difficult or unsatisfactory in Darktable, or perfectly possible and easy with the right tools.
Personally, I think that it will take me another 6–12 months to transition to the new setup in a way that I can exploit its full power, so I am marking photos to revisit with the amazing new stuff I keep learning here.