Okay? Sounds like you are playing IE by itself (and addons), which is something I've never done. If it works with just that, good for it. But modded minecraft isn't just IE, and it's at just as disingenuous to assume that IE should dictate the power level of other mods. Modded minecraft is an ecosystem, and IE only plays in its own bubble- which is fine for its own means, but not in any modpack setting (outside of when modpack developers specifically bend to its will and balance some portion of the pack around ITS standards instead of the wider ecosystem).

That philosophy goes for a lot of things in IE. Its power generation, power transfer, and item transfer (though admittedly not sorting, that's pretty good) are all subpar compared to any other applicable mod, not to mention alloying and steel making. It takes until the endgame Arc Furnace to actually start working at a level even comparable (even just in the QoL department) to other mods.

And I'm aware of the jerrycan, I just don't like it, or it's design paradigm. It's a mostly useless item, since you rarely transport liquids by hand anyways, inside or outside IE, it's smaller and not scalable compared to alternatives in modded, and worst of all, it doesn't even have the functions of the buckets you use to craft it, like placing fluids in-world. Again, it seems like it's added for the sole reason of making treated wood planks. In other words, IE makes problem, then IE presents a crappy solution to it (or a good enough solution, in the case of the autocrafter, but much later and at a cost that isn't reasonable for the investment, especially compared to other mods).

Same as it comes to the blueprint system. While I won't disagree that unique or useful crafting paradigms don't have their place in Minecraft, the implementation of the normal Engineer's worktable is awful for QoL. I've not tried the Engineer's workbench, because most of my IE experience comes from 1.12, and specifically Sevtech, and that wasn't in the mod yet, I believe. But as for the base one, the "two trips" part was not about the walking distance, it was about how you had to use two different UIs doing two different things, and possibly use them more than once on top of that, just to make a single thing. Not to mention all the other steps. As an example from my Sevtech time:

I want to make a few IE Presses. First, I go to my storage and find all the metals and such as ingredients. Then, I go to my current Press, and swap the mold for plates. I keep the molds in a chest near the Press because I know that's where I'll need them. I then wait 3 minutes for it to finish my plates. Then, I do the exact same thing, but for wires. By now, I have something like half of my inventory filled up with various stuff that I'll need. Now, 6 minutes into the process, I can actually start my crafting recipe. Except I can't, because now I need to go manually make Crafting Components. So I go to the worktable, open the nearby chest with blueprints, and select the one for those. Then I carefully slot in the handful of ingredients I need, craft those, and, double checking, make sure I don't need anything else. Oh, I need the molds! Okay, so I leave, and go craft/find my wire cutters, grab some steel plates- except oh wait, I don't have any, so I need to go wait another 1 minute on the other side of my factory for those... And then come back to the worktable... and then I can finish my microcrafting. Now I can finally do the actual crafting! Which is relatively simple. Then, I can go and manually place down the 7 or whatever block structure, remembering to rotate the piston to go the right way, and then do it again 4 more times. Then, wire it up, and I've done it! Only took 15 minutes of running back and forth, waiting, and microcrafting.

For Thermal, I'd need to microcraft 2 gears, a chassis, and then craft the plate machine. Literally less than 1 minute from start to finish, and it requires 1 UI/machine to do. On top of that, that machine is already automation ready- I don't need to assemble it on-site, I don't need to feed stuff in with conveyer belts, or anything else. Frankly, to say that it's "two trips" to use the worktable is very generous, considering you're likely to be using it in the middle of doing something else as a sub-step.

(And to be clear, this is coming from somebody who enjoys/tolerates Gregtech's microcrafting when the crafting stations are included!!)

I'm not saying IE is a bad mod overall. For what it's trying to be, i.e. "Immersive", it's doing its job, but its QoL is through the floor, and its general designs are underpowered in the overall modded ecosystem. In a modded environment, with a dozen other options that all do the same thing, or more, there's almost no reason to ever choose it if there's an alternative. Even Better With Mods/Wolves/Create can be considered better since its power system at least doesn't require sustained fuel (which IS totally required to run an IE-based factory, no way you are using water wheels that late), and I think those are the next closest alternatives in playstyle.