Kindly substantiate your claims.
DT has a clone tool. It's part of the retouch tool.[1] Which is very powerful and allows way more than just cloning. It is also non-destructive, like anything in DT.
DT has camera profiles, new cameras get added regularly.
You can also create them yourself if you have access to a color checker using a built-in tool.[2]
DT has tons of lens correction profiles. Basically anything you find in lensfun.
If your lens is missing, lensfun has a service where you send images and they send you the calibration data back and add it to to their database.[3]
I shoot (often exotic) manual glass most of the time.
If someone tells me DT is lacking in this regard it's a good indicator for me they have no clue what they are talking about or never used the app seriously.
UI: it could see improvement in terms of parameter exposure (no novice/simple mode) and ranges (some sliders go from 0..1, others from 0..100%) but otherwise?
What in the UI is prehistoric?
The catalog part of DT is also great. i.e. when your catalog is on a slow network or cloud drive DT can automatically cache RAWs locally and send back the XMPs with the edits only.
Caveat: I regularly get paid for photography work (it's not fulltime but give I worked professionally in blockbuster VFX for two decades I think I qualify).
I do all my processing in DT. If I have to do compositing work beyond that I export to Fusion.
[1] https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/3.8/en/module-referenc...
[2] https://pixls.us/articles/profiling-a-camera-with-darktable-...
