This was all still true ~6 months ago. Compared to Mailchimp and friends, SES is _very_ low level.
The other things I found really frustrating about SES were: templates had to be defined inline in a JSON file and then sent to SES via the AWS CLI. So, since there's is no online/visual editor, copy changes and the like required a developer to rebuild/sanitize/minify the template source and then update it via the AWS CLI.
It also took _way_ longer than it should have to have our rate limit bumped up to a reasonable level. IIRC, it took ~one week for my request to be processed (after submitting proof that we owned the domain, etc.) and it was only after a fit on twitter that AWS Support followed up with me and escalated the issue.
The other things I found really frustrating about SES were: templates had to be defined inline in a JSON file and then sent to SES via the AWS CLI. So, since there's is no online/visual editor, copy changes and the like required a developer to rebuild/sanitize/minify the template source and then update it via the AWS CLI.
It also took _way_ longer than it should have to have our rate limit bumped up to a reasonable level. IIRC, it took ~one week for my request to be processed (after submitting proof that we owned the domain, etc.) and it was only after a fit on twitter that AWS Support followed up with me and escalated the issue.