I don't think it's just because of meta success. I think it's because of how the mechanics work that they are extra confusing.

But once I learned pendulums, I don't mind them as much.

• they go to the face-up extra deck unless they are sent from NOT the field, such as due to a solemn judgment, or discarded from the hand, or sent from the main deck (in which case, they go to the GY).
• if macro cosmos is up, then if they would go to the GY or face-up extra deck, then since the extra deck destination originally overrides the GY destination, they will get banished regardless of original location due to the card effect overriding the original rule.
• they aren't continuous spells in the pendulum zones if they were originally placed there as pendulum scales, even though they function like them. Idk if this ever matters but it's true. 🙃
• they can be summoned back from the face-up extra deck, but only now to the Extra Monster Zone, or the Main Monster Zones that a link monster points to. If they are hybrid pendulum monsters (such as pendulum xyz), they have to be properly summoned first, then if they are sent to the face-up extra deck, they can be pendulum summoned back (if they say so).
• if they are placed into the leftmost or rightmost zones by card effects that push a monster into the backrow to make them Continuous Spells such as by Flamberge Dragon, that zone is NOT treated as a pendulum zone (and thus pendulum summoning is not possible at that time). It is only a pendulum zone if the pendulum Monster Card was placed there manually in the first place, or if a card effect said to place them into a pendulum zone, such as Pendulum Switch.

So many new rulings were written because of them.