There's a difference between arcane and simple-to-implement. Effectively .tablet-encode.conf is another Perl file which sets the default value of command line options.

Using something better is relatively straightforward, but given the lack of feedback of "oooh, scary, I can't write a config file" (until now); it's not been a priority :-)

If people don't say things to me directly (such as the GUI crash on some systems), they won't get changed unless I have a problem with them.

For example, you don't know Perl - this would presumably *help* you in helping to improve the documentation, in lieu of a new implementation :-)