Re: You don't have to like it to appreciate it.
"...create as needed accounts in the online Active Directory ... Try doing that in bash or cmd.exe."
dsquery / dsget / dsadd / dsmod would do that in cmd.exe, probably even easier than powershell. Funny though, they pipeline objects just like powershell does.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/cc732952(v=ws.11)
I grant that sending an email is not so easy in cmd.exe. And for SharePoint, powershell is The Way.