Yeah, I also had encryption problems, especially when I was running Conduit rather than Synapse. However, I never had such problems in XMPP with OMEMO.

Yeah, Element is super easy to use.

You just need to chose a Matrix instance, create an account with username and password that have nothing to do with what follows, log in (not that), generate keys, ideally back up those keys (which you could ignore, but you are prompted to), then it bothers you with cross-signing (which you can also ignore, except you kinda can't, depending on you contacts, so log in again and confirm the devices), then chose another, unrelated instance to be discoverable via mail/phone (which again is optional, except if you want to be or don't want to explain how adding via domain + name works), than add mail or phone number and activate it and boom, you are golden. Except you are not, because if you want Element X, well, you still have no push notifications, which just require you to... Oh, create another account, neat!

Meanwhile on Signal you do what? Punch in your number, confirm, optionally set a PIN, optionally enable backups, done. Yeah, that's not as private, and missing online massage backups, I know, but it's also a 1-3 step setup without any alarming prompts, telling you to do non-straightforward stuff that could very well compromise your privacy. Or having to dig through options and make choices and handle keys you don't understand.

Do you need a reminder that 123456789 is a popular password and 2FA commonly considered a nuisance? Matrix is complicated enough to confuse even (non-ITSec) IT people.

As a professional software developer, I consider Matrix/Element to be quite user-unfriendly (and anecdotally also quite buggy)

Edit: Some clarifications. Describing this easy process was kinda confusing for silly ol' me