Unreal 4 is not so much a broke engine as it is an unfinished engine with uncompleted features.
In 4.0 there was a lot of promise but in 4.27 there really is no advancement as to key features which in my opinion should have advanced as to the need to create a video game as compared to cough cough advances in the render technology.
If your making a movie, or anything with in the visual media UE4 would be a good choice, but for a video game I have to question the addition of things like the addition of ray tracing unless the intention is to make Unreal 4 the preferred rendering platform as to the goal of achieving a real time interactive rendering solution.
A worth while effort towards replacing expensive rendering farm solutions but other areas of forward design seems to be suffering as to ease of use creating a confusing development tool which other next gen solutions seems to be doing a better job.
This I feel is a problem Epic is aware of as they admit as much the current state of UE4 is a mess as to usability design as stated here.
As someone interested in the use of content over the need to implement code to me the progress of the video game in Unreal 4 is similar in it’s approach as to developing a web page using notepad so visual needs, and the mechanics the drives them, is of more importance as to ready made framework solutions that is hindered as to UE4s ease of use.
Take the animation subsystem for example.
Why in 4.27 are we still dependent on the use of animation blueprints? At this stage we should be using plug-n-play component solutions as to a design pathway that takes to modular design like a duck to water.
As I mentioned I feel the problem is usability as required by the iteration process as to how a productivity application should be designed instead of reinventing the wheel each and every time one starts a new project.
The good news in part I feel the mess is what has motivated the move to Unreal 5.
Just saying.
As to why I use Unreal 4 is simple. It’s fun and fits with my need to figure things out. Solve the problems and mystery of just making something work with out consideration as to the desired result.