Are Environments Worth It?

Are Environments Worth It?

In concept, Environments in ZC is a great idea. I think the flow is pretty smart when you compare it to GitHub, especially for a low code audience. However, in practice, I've found it to be unpredictable, and I've only used it a few times. 

Aside from Zoho's help, are there any best practices for using them? How else would you manage a release cycle in ZC?

Examples:

1. As raised in a different post, keeping data in synch between environments is difficult. 

2. I've had instances where global variables configured in Settings > Variables changed for no apparent reason, requiring a Help Desk ticket.

3. Just today, the fields on a form display differently in Dev vs Stage, despite both environments having the same exact layout in the form designer. I'm unable to fix it, requiring a Help Desk ticket.

I understand that DevOps can be complex - a lot of moving parts - but you wouldn't expect basic things like #2 and #3 to break, so I don't trust it. 

Curious what others have experienced.