I think this just varies by household. Some people are comfortable setting up automations with many different conditionals. Others just naturally think in simpler terms and use voice control or motion sensors or other physical options to “fill in the blanks.” It’s not a matter of technical sophistication either way, it’s just how individuals prefer to use their home automation systems.
If you do like the idea of setting up multilevel automations, check out CORE.
It is a community-created rules engine, very sophisticated, which allows for multiple layered conditionals, private variables, stacked if’s, etc.
By allowing a single rule to have “or this…” “Or this…” “Or this and that…” Many people find they can have only one rule Per device and keep everything together.
Designing a rule can be complicated, but there are many community members that will help you if you get stuck.
It’s still in development, so there may be a few glitches, but the developer is very active in the forums and also takes new feature requests.
Apparently smart things hasn’t done anything similar officially because they don’t want something that looks so technical. But if you want powerful automations (which CORE calls “Pistons”), it’s definitely worth a look:
[OBSOLETE] [BETA MILESTONE 1] CoRE (Community's own Rules Engine)
