The install process for any OS can be a tricky thing. Over the years things have gotten better though, especially in the open source OS field. Most of the Linux distributions now come with a fully graphical install process. For the BSD systems not much has changed over the years, they are all mostly basic, straight forward, no frills steps. The DragonFly BSD project has been trying to change that, with their BSD Installer. This new installer is being used by LiveBSD for a FreeBSD live CD. I can already picture all of those who cursed sysinstall for lo these many years jumping up for joy.
Truth be told, I’ve never had much of a problem with sysinstall. Sure there are a some things I would change, but nothing really huge.