@prettygood @badsamurai @cR0w "Better" is a subjective term. My background is in network engineering so I'm perfectly comfortable living in a RS-232 terminal, using whitebox switches and manually determining the root bridge for STP.
It comes down to what are you trying to accomplish, how far into the weeds do you want to get, how much do you want to spend, and where you feel the gaps in your setup are now?