This is why I try to abstract away that stuff into an easier to use API. All the basic things you need to do from code is much simpler now (at least for me it is) and not at the expense of flexibility.

My needs have been the ability to do easy configuration and coding the game logic in script. I want to be able to bind to routines that will manipulate the game objects while keeping time critical code on the native side and expose to the scripting system enough to make the project highly data driven. Lua's associative arrays make doing this much easier. This combined with the simpler API and Lua's speed should make for a win/win. I hope!