I vote for more magic as well 
But you’re right, documentation is lacking. But for support there’s this forum and most or all questions regarding Art are answered in a very short time. Then lib management (DAM functionality you mean, I suppose) can indeed be done with other programs. I don’t know what you mean with “better metadata support”.
I had a one-year free license of Lightroom but my conclusion was: I don’t need that, Art (or RT) can do everything I want. And Art is free, while LR isn’t.