Agreed. I've screamed about this since it first appeared in some beta.
Basically they forced all system integrator into using netinstall on new devices. There is a trick in to put the device-mode command as last in the netinstall script. In our case, we use branding kit to provision CPE routers, and /system/reset-configuration to get it apply. Simple and easy, no netinstall so someone in field could just follow a few steps. Now it is a container with netinstall, and making sure each new unit gets that treatment when they come in, which is PITA since it means we cannot drop-ship things to a customer.
And for sympathy, see discussion here:
And I too have been burned by this of late, since zerotier used to be allowed by default but newer units it's not. We use ZT as the management backbone, so it's a big problem. We have several in field that we had to manually setup WG to get to the devices, since I'd forgotten they were a newer batch.