Indeed, as a newcomer to Nix I was immediately put off by the arcaness of everything. I don't want my first experience to be memorized obscure paths and funky command line arguments (such may justified _later_ when more advanced options are wanted). I'm glad it works for people and I gather nix-env is a step in the right direction, but it's IMO not quite there yet.
EDIT: example, why is it
instead of