Does it say something then that I can't wrap my head around Unity? In all fairness, I haven't tried very hard, but when it opened into a 3D editor, I was like "urr, where do I start?"

Unity does seem to make certain types of games easier to make... That's not from experience, but based instead on how popular it is and the various types of games that are made with it. It seems that in the right hands it is the right tool for the job so it's not surprising that it's being taught and promoted... Many developers can't afford to build the entire engine from the ground up, and most developers probably don't need to either. I don't think that it's healthy for the Allegro community to promote "hate" on engines. If an engine helps a developer get a game made then so be it. Ultimately, the end product is what matters. The parts under the hood are an implementation detail that isn't relevant to the end user. Performance matters, but shipping at all matters more.