I mean, it doesn't HAVE to be clunky at all. Most people tend to ignore it, but for me, I absolutely cannot stand a messy home screen, which is one of the reasons why I moved from Android. Most app icons were all different shapes and sizes and there just wasn't a sense of unity in the UX. I know newer Android phones and Pixel use those circular icons, but I don't like the look of those at all. Overall it just never looked "clean" to me if that makes sense
Here's my current home screen. And as you can see, everything is neatly organized into folders. I don't miss the app drawer at all either but that's a different story