I'm glad it's not just me - I do game modding in my spare time and I figured out how to use Hammer to make maps - it took a day or two but I figured it out.
I wanted to make some models too but when I downloaded Blender and looked at a tutorial to create a cube and I just thought... why is this so complicated? It looks easier now (I was probably looking at doing it close to 20 years ago) but back then it seemed crazy that there was a long tutorial just to create a cube.
I played with a simpler modelling program called Anim8or (https://www.anim8or.com/) and it was quite nice to use though - I could create shapes and drag the vertices and it all seemed quite intuitive.
I created a whole Counterstrike map back in the day in a few days.
Meanwhile, I can't get anything substantially done in Blender in a week. I just gave up.
i mean blender has to support a lot more than a mapping tool for a game. it seems pretty expected to me that it would be more complicated to have complete freedom to do whatever you want vs the strict limits that such a tool imposes on you.