I never realized something like this would be considered new, since we've been doing it for almost 10 years.. There are a lot of custom wordpress versions now that re-worked the admin, most of them are now re-branded solutions custom configured for various niche topics.

11 Years ago, when I switched from b2 cafelog, I have always thought wordpress was the easiest admin to use.. Joomla, Drupal, and others I thought were confusing.. But as far as the admin, there have been and still are options to change whatever you want to make it however you want. It's really not hard or anything special anymore.

I have about 1000 more links, but here is one, http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/10-impressive-wordpress-admin-themes-for-2014/