My general question is why is there such disconnection between all the data manipulation tools. One of the examples is that I have a workflow that updates a field of a record with some information from related modules.

Unfortunately workflows are not executed with CSV import, which is really bad since it say on RECORD CREATION, it doesn't specify which method so to my understanding that usually means all of them.

So I developed a schedule that checks for specific records and updates a field that should then trigger a workflow that has ON FIELD UPDATE trigger. Unfortunately this doesn't work either. 

Question is - what works? Why csv import v manual insert is considered different but then automation tools have RECORD CREATION trigger, which is obviously not true? This, in my opinion, should be documented much better than it is now.