Why does copying our UI layouts and hotbars from character to character need to be...

[Rongway]

The only way of doing it is this convoluted way of going into the game folder, figuring out which folder belongs to which characters, and copy-pasting everything over. Which wouldn't be bad if the folders were named after the charters instead of just being CHR with a string of numbers and letters after them.

Create a shortcut to the character folder by name once you've figured out which is which.

Oh and if you made characters that you messed around with and then deleted because you didn't want to actually play with them, then those files are there too, and you have to check them as well.

Go into Details view

Then check the "Date created" column. Supposing you made multiple characters on the same day before deciding on a keeper, the last one on that day will be the one to keep and the rest can be deleted.

Maybe I'm missing something and there's some easier way, but right now it's so annoying. You'd think something like this would be top priority because most people want to play games, rather than fight with the UI.

No, you're right, it is super annoying. While workarounds exist, they exist only for PC players as far as I know, and even then your average PC user isn't PC user enough to know how to do all of this without supervision. There really should be a simple one button solution in the game that lets you copy settings across characters, or even to designate one of your characters as the default on whom all new characters should be built.