Well I agree that programming Max is weird. And if I didn't like code better, I wouldn't have made Scheme for Max or the csound~ max object. :-)
But... we teach max to a high level at the university where I'm doing my Phd in music and CS, and I have seen tons of great stuff built with it by non-devs. I would argue Max is counterintuitive to programmers. My experience with non-coders is that they take to it usually better than to things like Chuck, Csound, SuperCollider, etc.
As a programmer, Max and Live provide me with an outer container layer and environment that is far more productive compared to code-only. but this of course depends on what you are trying to do and how you like to do it!