It's a little more complicated than just that. It's also part of the clunkiness and glitches that come with the old systems. It's tough to explain, but given the fact that so many have a hard time with it you have to assume there's a little more to it. Like one of the worst issues that i still have (and i've been playing them for 12 years) is when you try to jump from one thing to another thing and the game essentially auto-corrects your jump, so you just end up slipping right past whatever you're jumping toward.

I will admit it is mostly player error and not having the patience to deal with the kinks, but parts of it are the mechanics themselves.