Well, its not actually more user friendly to build, just (IMHO) to use.
When soft shackles hit the scene I tried to get on board with them but they were just to finicky. Fast fwd two years and I finally made a soft shackle that I find easy enough to operate, and that I'll actually use. With a sliding modified whipping knot from Grizz and inspiration from various other sources such as Knotty and TeeDee I've made an overly complex soft shackle. Forgive me if someone else makes them the same, I couldn't find anything in my searches. At the end of the day its nothing revolutionary, its just a different variation on the same theme.

For whatever reasons I didn't care for the two legged variety of SS's and I didn't like the milk/bury variety either; never made one with a leash but it looked like I wouldn't like that either, so here is what I came up with.

I made this from 1/8" amsteel (had some scrap lying about), it actually takes quite a bit of line to make one so you can comfortably tie the diamond knot.

What I did was form a fixed eye of approx 2" with a locked brummel, then bury one line inside the other and come out a few inches later and do another locked brummel. Tie the diamond knot on top of this locked brummel and then do another locked brummel one the other side of the diamond knot before burying one line inside the other again. Now tie Grizz's whipping knot on the fixed eye and open and close it around the diamond knot. Like I said, overly complex, but it works for me, I've been using this on my tree straps with great success. I don't know if all the LB's derate the line or not, but I haven't hit the ground yet (knock wood).