Its regex dialect is horrendous because of the sheer number of additional backslashes you end up having to use in string literals compared to other languages, e.g. "\\(a\\|b\\)" vs "(a|b)".
Exactly! When I saw that rx exists, I was delighted, that I don't actually have to write terrible regexes. Something like rx should exist in any serious lisp imo. Well, one should avoid regexes as much as possible, of course, but when you have to use them, rx is a great tool to have!
Personally I don't really have a problem with 'normal' regex. Learned it to a decent level, have gotten many years of value from that, reading and writing, generally no issues.
At least there's the "rx" DSL as an alternative.