It can work fine with the minimote. but you have to use a virtual switch for a “man in the middle” protocol.
So the minimote button is assigned to turning on a virtual switch, that virtual switch coming on becomes the “if” to IFTTT and you’re off.
Because cut-and-paste is very difficult for me (I’m quadriparetic and depend on voice recognition software), I use IFTTT a lot, probably more than most smartthings customers. Virtual switches are the key.
As far as the UI, yeah, it sucks. And I have no idea why it isn’t better. I’ve been waiting a year. I really like the SmartThings vision, I think the staff are great and the community is fantastic. But a lot of it still just feels like proof of concept to me. Still, my SmartThings makes my echo hundred times better, and I love my echo, so I can’t say I’m unhappy. Just frustrated.
There are two topics that might help. (These are clickable links.) The first one is for people who don’t code at all, and highlights some of the third-party solutions that community members have developed to fill some of the UI gaps. It includes a dashboard solution and two different rules engine apps, one for iOS that is sold through the App Store and a free one that is browser-based. All developed by independent community members on their own time. So obviously it can be done. 
All three of these are very popular.
The second topic is more for “power users” and details some of the many different scheduler options that are available in SmartThings even if there’s nothing official to tell you that they’re there.
I realize that’s not an answer for why the platform doesn’t have an absolutely killer 21st-century mobile app (which could still communicate with the hub even if the cloud connection is down, something that would make a big difference to me personally), plus a web-based rules engine. But maybe it will still be of interest.